Domestic Work Is Real Work: Nicaraguan Co-Ops Stop Being Polite and Start Paying Women

It is one of the world’s most unfortunate dynamics that domestic labor is by and large considered to only have economic value when performed for families other than our own. Luckily, a handful of co-operatives in Nicaragua have taken steps to change that.

According to the New Internationalist, the Juan Francisco Paz Silva co-op in Nicaragua has included the value of women’s domestic work in their production budget since 2008. Co-op leaders understand that women’s domestic labor contributes to the success of the production process, even if it’s not a “job” assigned by a specific employer with a paycheck. Domestic work is a job in and of itself. The Silva co-op worked with Ético, an ethical trading and investment company, to account for women’s domestic labor in the cost of the co-op’s production of sesame oil. Using the same rate paid for rural male manual labor, a fee of 960 córdobas (around $50) was added to each manzana (0.7 of a hectare) of sesame crop. This added cost continues to be included in the co-op’s Fair Trade contract with The Body Shop.

via newint

Valuing domestic work is all about following the production chain all the way to the bottom (and forgetting about the patriarchy). Eva Pineda, gender equity officer for Aldea Global, explains that the chain of events that result in the coffee crops being harvested begins at the farmer’s home. Pineda works for the Asociación Aldea Global Jinotega de Nicaragua, a local co-operative that created and sells Tierra Madre coffee, coffee exclusively produced by Nicaraguan women who own the land they harvest. In a four part video series for Intermón Oxfam, Pineda explains that women’s work days in rural Nicaragua are longer than most men’s work days in the field, yet women remain largely unpaid for their work. Women are responsible for preparing the food, laundry, taking care of the family, the livestock and the home. Their day starts at 4am and can end anywhere between 6 to 10pm -during peak harvest season women usually don’t sleep more than 4 hours a night, regardless of whether or not they are working in the fields. Women’s domestic work is the starting point in the process that results in harvested coffee beans, as they facilitate all the components that allow for the day to run its course. Any feminist would agree, but society still has a hard time remembering not to take that work for granted.

Pineda sheds light on the structure that benefits from women’s unpaid labor. In part 2 of her video series, Pineda explains that women in rural Nicaragua are taught to stay at home and learn how to take care of the family, while men are encouraged to leave their communities in search of better opportunities. The reasoning behind this is that women are fragile and men are not — their definition of fragile becomes clear when she elaborates that a family’s biggest fear is that the woman will come back pregnant, noting that men in general are never really advised against getting a women pregnant when they leave their communities. Because of the expectation to have girls grow up around and take care of their families, many of them are denied education. The lack of opportunities — particularly education — usually dictates a life of financial dependance on a male figure, be it a father or a husband. Paid domestic labor upsets that structure, gives women more power in the community and over their own lives. The effect of accounting for domestic labor in the cost of sesame oil and coffee production goes beyond the tangible monetary amount; it sends the message that women’s work is valuable no matter what it looks like or where it takes place in the production process.

eva pineda via intermon oxfam

“You no longer have to lower your head and wait for the man to tell you what to do; now we make our own decisions and share activities and responsibilities with our partners.” – Adilia Amador Sevilla from Achuapa, Nicaragua

To be clear, the added income does not go directly into the women’s hands. A study presented at the Oñati International Institute for the Sociology of Law clarifies that the co-ops have used the fee paid for women’s domestic labor to set up general savings that now finance a micro-loan program for women members of the co-op. Women have used the micro-loans to support their own artisan work and the preparation of goods that can be later sold at the co-op shop. As a result, the Silva co-op has seen an increase in the amount of women that have joined the cooperative as full members. In 2010, 19 of the 34 new members were women — a significant increase for a co-op that previously had only 42 women out of 272 members. Aldea Global uses the gender premium added to their products to support the co-op’s gender equity program, which funds the women’s rights awareness workshops for men and women. The gender equity program also covers the legal costs necessary to change farms’ and lands’ registry to include the name of the women working in them.

luz evelia godines, member of aldea global. via intermon oxfam

Pineda mentions land ownership and acknowledgement of the key role domestic work has in the production process has opened women’s eyes. “They had never seen themselves as part of the production process, just as unpaid cooks for their husbands” but now they have more confidence and a well-deserved sense of ownership.

The impact of these initiatives is the more striking because of its limited execution -I couldn’t find any other similar initiatives taking place anywhere else in the world. Yet again, recognizing domestic labor as valuable challenges the structure that dictates only men should control the means of production. Saying labor is valuable even when it is: a) predominantly performed by women and b) performed outside the workplace would mean recognizing women as equals. (Not to mention the intersection between women of color and domestic work.) Here’s hoping one day that takes place.

Fear and Loathing (as a 21-Year Old Queer) in Singapore

I’ve been taken by Adrianna Tan’s recent stream of posts about her experience as a gay woman in Singapore, namely The One About Having It All, Dear Gay Teen, and Dear Fundamentalist Christian, not least because localised narratives are so few and far between. Conservative voices would have us believe that the LGBTQ community is disproportionately loud here, but there were definitely too few stories – especially from those who aren’t cis men – when I needed them (and I still do).

In the middle of a shitty summer break at home renegotiating closets and bigotry after what was a big year for me coming out while physically in London, Adrianna’s words gave me hope. They made me feel like having so much of my immediate future tied to this country might not be a dead-end path after all. At the same time – through no fault of hers, for we are very different people in very different circumstances – they also did little to assuage the fears I have about living here.

As someone who’s yet to so much as graduate, I am in no position to give anyone advice on how to live their lives or what to expect from them. (I hold a special sense of loathing for those who presume to be able to do so on platforms like Thought Catalog, or those not even of this generation who churn out endless trend pieces on ambiguously categorised “millennials.”)

What I can do is talk about what scares me.

via Pink Dot SG

That I/We Will Live in Isolation

I don’t fear not finding romance or partnership. Whenever I complain about singledom (and I’m horrible at functioning as an unpartnered human being), my partner dryly reminds me that I’m the very definition of serial monogamy, having spent more time in relationships than out of them since age 15. (In return, I point out that there are only so many best friends I can have fall in love – or bed, or both – with me, and I might have to revise my lady-charming techniques should we ever split up.)

My partner is my closest friend and my safe space. She’s kind, endlessly supportive, and when the rest of the world shuts out this angry brown queer, she gets it. I am so, so lucky to have her with me.

The anatomy of a long-distance, camera-shy relationship (in other words: I don’t have photos of us)

But I need more than that. We both do.

We need friends and we need family. We need community. We need support systems, especially because so many like us see the ones that we were born into or that we grow up with taken away from us. It’s often said that Singapore has a large gay community, but I’m not sure it’s accurate to conflate having a large number of gay people with having actively engaged, connected communities built around queer identities, and this statistical speculation is one that is incongruent with the experiences of my peers and me. Maybe we’re too young, maybe we don’t go to PLAY enough (or ever), or maybe we just haven’t been looking in the right places. We’re not isolated, in general — most of us have healthy social lives and are privileged in our education and careers — but we struggle to find groups in which we don’t feel different.

Community building is impossibly difficult when we’re literally denied spaces to come together, a problem that is endemic in civil society here. It is slowly getting better, and I’m fortunate to be in a place and time to witness this happen. Groups like Sayoni and events like IndigNation allow us to meet and connect with other LGBTQ people in places that don’t (always) involve alcohol, darkness and anonymity.

Pink Dot, a growing annual gathering of LGBTQ people & straight allies
via Pink Dot SG

Yet these spaces can only do so much. While actively repressive techniques — like police entrapment, criminalisation of expression and repeated exclusion from legal avenues of assembly — are too far back to be part of my personal memory, they’re still recent enough to cast a long shadow on today’s activism. Organising as we see it now, operating just under the radar in public view but not always with public permissions, is impressive but stops short of being able to reach out to the ones who need it the most.

During International Autostraddle Brunch Weekend I found myself at a mini-roundtable about coming out with my partner and two people I’d only known as acquaintances before, and I thought, “This. This is what I’ve been missing.” To be at home among people who make you feel at home: it makes a world of difference. This is what so many queer youth need and it’s what so many of them here don’t have.

I’m starting my community small now, with the people I know, the people they know, and the occasional person off the internet. (If you’re reading this and feel the same way, please do not hesitate to get in touch.) It’s hard, but it’s not impossible, and we need – no, deserve – to be so much more than alone.

via Love Singing

That I Will Never See the Family I Want

These things I take as given: I will not get married, adopt a child, or own a house in the foreseeable future. Not all of these are completely impossible, but each requires overcoming formidable financial, legal and policy barriers to reach the level of status quo the majority of the population take for granted.

Yet while these are rights I will fight for politically, they are not what I want personally. I have no interest in a 2 parent + 2.1 children family to fit into a 3-room HDB flat. This is not what family looks like to me.

Government-built HDB flats, in which 80% of Singaporean residents live
via Greh Fox / Flickr

From both a queer and cultural perspective, the dominance of the two-parent nuclear family model (often with an underpaid domestic helper appended) is unnatural to me. Janis, in Alison Bechdel’s Dykes to Watch Out For, is raised by her single mum Jasmine, has a “gender-blending role model” in Lois, is homeschooled by Stuart, and is Jiao Raizel’s de facto older sister. She’s cared for by a close-knit community for whom blood ties are only incidental. As a child, I was provided for by my parents, nannied by an unrelated neighbour and her family, lived with my grandmother and aunt, and celebrated birthdays, exam results and all manner of small events with an extended family of more than 40 people.

The queer family isn’t bound by biology or social norms. It can choose to be – there is nothing wrong with that – but it is not there by default. My queer family is multi-generational and multi-dimensional; it is messy and loosely-defined; and it’s built on love, sometimes loathing, and always commitment.

This queer family doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It requires legal and societal permissions to exist, especially in a small (and intrusive) country as this.

It’s fair to say this arrangement is technically possible in Singapore – if you’re wealthy. If you can afford to live in a space bigger than HDB’s cubicles (which are themselves impossibly expensive). If you can collectively afford to sustain yourself, your partner/s and your dependents without the numerous and substantial government financial grants thrown at the feet of married heterosexual couples. If you can afford to run the risk that should something go wrong – say someone falls ill, a relationship falls apart in a bad way, or a biological-but-uninvolved relative decides to stake a claim in your family – you can find the individual means and legal avenues to protect the ones you love. Few of us can hope for this.

Partly in jest, my partner and I often say we want to live on a queer commune in the future. Some of this is literal: the idea of a self-sustaining group household appeals to us on so many levels. More fundamentally, though, this queer commune is a metaphorical expression of the desire for a family life that is richer and more diverse than what the state-sanctioned heteronormative model affords us, one that is bound by affection and responsibility rather than designated roles. We want to live in a society that respects and values that, or at the very least does not actively seek to extinguish it. This is not that society.

via Pink Dot SG

That I Will Lose Culture and Community

To say that I have a complicated, confusing relationship with race, ethnicity, religion, language and culture – yes, all of them – would be a gross understatement. Under this nation’s terribly progressive approach to racial classification, I am Other, and as a child when asked “what” I was I would say, “Nothing.” When asked what my cultural background, I would say, “I have none,” and I would think, “Not yours.” They say you don’t recognise culture till you’re out of it, like a fish out of water, and for the longest time I felt like an amphibious being still looking for the pond it came from.

This is how I still feel in queer communities, especially activist ones. A lot of my queer/feminist engagement began in London, where, unsurprisingly, physical and metaphorical spaces are dominated by white people and whiteness. I don’t  identify with the Singaporean community there, which is predominantly Chinese and affluent. I don’t identify with the Muslim community there, either, which is more South Asian and Middle Eastern than Southeast Asian. Yet it’s also in London’s messy heterogeneity that I found individuals whose experiences at the intersections of race, religion and sexuality most closely mirrored mine, and it is in London where I learnt to start talking about race at all.

London Pride 2011
via Richard Tanswell / Flickr

At the crossroads of brownness and queerness my anxieties are twofold. The political: will I always be fighting to make room for my selves, occupying spaces in which no one else looks like me?

I have no interest in glorifying my cultural background in simple opposition to others’. I consider religious classes to be among my most unhappy memories: taught in a language I was haltingly fluent in, teaching me not to question and scaring my younger self into self-doubt and submission. The Malay Muslim community in Singapore – using “Malay” in the loosest, most inclusive sense of the label here – is culturally and politically hostile to queer people (which should not be taken as an indictment against individual Malay Muslim people, among whom I have always been and from whom I still find friendship and support). There have been so, so many times I’ve wished I could turn my back on all this.

Yet I’m similarly antagonised by the prospect of participating in queer spaces and communities which are ignorant of, if not outright hostile towards, the ways in which my racial and religious identities shape the way I perceive and experience queerness. Racism and Islamophobia are just as endemic in LGBTQ spaces as they are elsewhere, and talked about even less. Constantly being (forced to be) the killjoy – especially in the few spaces you dare to expect acceptance – is tiring, demoralising, and eventually silencing.

But I who am bound by my mirror
as well as my bed
see causes in color
as well as sex

and sit here wondering
which me will survive
all these liberations.

– “Who Said It Was Simple”, From a Land Where Other People Live, Audre Lorde

Then the personal: I fear that embracing my sexuality and the life that comes with it comes at the expense of the life I come from. My queerness violates the cultural guidelines I grew up with, and my brownness is absent in popular queer narratives. What does it look like when a brown queer woman gets married? What does it sound like when she names a child, and what languages does she speak to them in? What does it look like if she doesn’t do any of these things – what is it, then, that still makes her a brown queer woman?

My religious and cultural identities are fluid, as much a function of the environments I’m in as they are a mark of my birth and upbringing. I call my relatives auntie, uncle, wak, nyai, yai, datuk, nenek, ammi, ammahti, baba. I eat rice with my hands. During Hari Raya I femme it up for my mother’s sake and light sparklers with my siblings, and if they ask nicely I slave in the kitchen for hours making kuih that I know they’ll eat most of before any guests come to visit. I do all this not because of an abstract commitment to race or religion, but because these practices are family and these practices are me.

I’ve never been fluent in bahasa pasar and I’ve always tried to get out of attending void deck weddings (the food’s never vegetarian), but these still feel much more real to me than pictures of Ellen and Portia’s wedding or even the story of anti-377A poster couple Gary and Kenneth. I cannot get a firm grasp of – much less put a label on – my “culture” most days, but I do know that taking it away will mean taking part of me away.

That Someone I Love Will Die

When I was in an unhealthy relationship, the kindest thing the adults in my life thought to do was close an eye to it. To turn away and let me be because I was in a relationship with another girl – something that was known to happen but not talked about – and in so doing they didn’t notice that I was turning up to school exhausted, that my grades were nosediving, and that I was growing distant from friends I’d known for years.

Same-sex partner violence happens. Too many stories in I Will Survive and elsewhere give evidence to this. It happens because some people are just assholes, yes, but it also happens because exploring sexuality and relationships in an environment with little to no education of consent and boundaries, overwhelming religious and societal pressures, and the prevailing mindset that same-sex relationships (especially teen ones) aren’t real and don’t “count” is a toxic, explosive mixture.

Who do you turn to, then, when the worst happens? Who can you trust to condemn your abuser’s behaviour, and not pathologise your gender identity or sexuality instead? Who’s going to tell you that it’s not okay for you to be treated this way, not that it’s not okay for you to be this way?

I am afraid help will come too late to someone in my life. I am afraid that closets become coffins.

I now count myself lucky in that I learnt early on what I will and will not accept from other people. I am fortunate, too, in that I hardly struggled with accepting my sexuality and was thick-skinned enough to weather the insensitive, stupid remarks from schoolmates that arose as a result of it, but I know this is far from a common experience: anthologies of queer stories often also feature account after account of people hurt by those they trusted, victimised by strangers, and wanting to end their own lives.

The closet is a bitter, destructive place, and its shadow lingers even when you try to leave. (If you can.) I’m still learning how negotiating disclosure, comfort and safety works as an adult, but I’ve already seen what always being on the margins of what is acceptable can do to a person.

That I Will Give Up

I know as I write this that there will be people who’ll question everything I say, whether it’s the queers who’ve Made It and feel that everyone else should be able to, or the straight “allies” who tell us to be thankful for what we already have here because it’s so much worse in [brown people country], isn’t it? Be grateful. Be discrete. Don’t go anyhow make trouble, say the wrong thing. It takes so much just to be heard here – here, where we are Tolerant and we are Harmonious, where we cling to our monolithic narratives of Meritocracy and Progress like liferafts – that there is little left to be said for actually getting things done.

Hear me on this: surviving on the margins takes all but everything out of you. Having to continually justify your existence and experiences is exhausting. Scraping together new communities while still knee-deep in the ashes of the bridges you’ve had to burn is hard work. Losing people doesn’t get any easier.

Every day is a struggle up a path strewn with shards of microaggression and blocked by walls of homophobic policies and institutions. I wonder how much the metaphor of the “uphill battle” works here – does it really get downhill from any point, does it get easier then, and am I now closer to the summit or to the ground? Is this a climb worth taking? What does it mean to reach the other side?

I could be so comfortable here. I could turn around, keep my head down and live with what I have going for me now. I know I am personally far more than adequately privileged to be able to do this. I could sit down and shut up, let the everyday queerphobia wash over my calloused skin and pretend I do not see. Pretend I do not see the teen who still reacts viscerally to the word “lesbian” because of how it was used against her, or the single child who must remain in the closet while juggling expectations of career and family, or the trans man who is told by his mother that his identity exists only to hurt her. It would be so much easier.

I’d like to stop being angry, you see. I’d like to stop having to fight for my space and my voice. I’d like to stop because there is no longer reason to be angry, because these are things we no longer have to fight for, and not because I no longer have it in me to be angry. Yet today I hold scarce hope for the world of the former – so I fear being always angry, but I fear the day I stop being angry so much more.

Last month I attended a roundtable hosted by the Association of Women for Action and Research (AWARE) discussing discriminatory public housing policies. (Tl;dr if you’re not married, preferably with children, and/or above 35, you’re never going to own a house.) Someone in the audience stressed that it was an issue of a lack of flats rather than ideological bias, to which I replied that regardless of the availability of housing, it’s still discrimination to privilege a single type of family unit in access to that housing. He countered, “If there were a housing shortage and if I had to choose, of course I’d choose the heterosexual family.”

Therein lies the problem: he does get to choose.

People like him – straight, married, affluent, Chinese, English-educated – get to choose. People like him get to decide what is “good for society”; people like him get to decide what (and who) “society” is, period.

Homosexuals work in all sectors, all over the economy, in the public sector and in the civil service as well. They are free to lead their lives, free to pursue their social activities. But there are restraints and we do not approve of them actively promoting their lifestyles to others, or setting the tone for mainstream society. They live their lives. That is their personal life, it is their space. But the tone of the overall society, I think remains conventional, it remains straight, and we want it to remain so.

– PM Lee Hsien Loong, Parliamentary Speech on 377A, November 2007

You can tell us that you’ll let us be, that you won’t do anything to us, but the fact remains that you could if you wanted to (and you do, often). I am not interested in living on borrowed graces. I will not be swept under the carpet, and I do not want to be merely “allowed” to carry on with my “lifestyle.” I will not be tolerated.

I am an optimistic person – annoyingly so, says my partner – and I am thankful for my life. I am lucky. I rarely, if ever, regret things, and I am excellent at living in one impulsive moment after another.

But living so much in the present is as much a defense mechanism as it is a character trait. I move on from the past so quickly because what’s on hand right now requires all of me, and I do not look to the future because I do not see it. I hit a massive block when asked to imagine what my life will be like in 5, 10 years – and I am happier when I simply don’t think about it.

This country does not plan for a future with people like me in it. This country does not have a future for people like me. It will permit me to exist, it will have me learn how to cope, but it will not allow me to live.

Also.Also.Also: Sheer Dykeadence and Other Stories We Missed This Week

Hey, y’all! I’m coming at you live from Los Angeles, meaning I’m happier than I’ve ever been.

Gay married in New Mexico

After an Albuquerque judge ruled that gay marriage was legal on Monday, counties around the state started issuing marriage licensees to same-sex couples. Hooray for the dozens of couples who got married yesterday!

By Eddie Moore, AP

You Don’t Know Me

In the wake of the VMAs, rapper Le1f is speaking out about Macklemore’s “Same Love.” As a sap, it hurts my heart. As a queer, it’s important.

Southern Comfort

A 12-year-old trans* girl from Georgia will be able to use the girls’ room. Why is this controversial again? Her name is Skylar and she is ADORABLE.

Bad Guys

+ Lawmakers in Texas can’t seem to decide if anti-gay and -trans sentiments are actually discrimination or just part of a LARGER PLOT FOR DESTROYING ‘TRADITIONAL VALUES.’ In other news, it’s 2013.

+ The Portland taxi driver who won’t serve lesbians has lost his license. Jerk.

+ “Across the country, thousands of LGBT educators are forced to be closeted for fear of being harassed or otherwise discriminated against by coworkers, parents, and administrators, with the most dire consequence being the loss of their jobs. Their fate is usually in the hands of school board members, or, in private schools, administrative personnel, who generally have only the teacher’s work history and a list of parental complaints to go by.” The Advocate reports.

+ Russia still sucks: they’re defending their anti-gay law to the IOC and trying to take anti-LGBT discrimination to a whole ‘nutha level.

Russian lawmakers are currently considering a proposal to offer free “ex-gay” therapy to gay Russians to enable them to “return to normal life and become heterosexuals, as are 95 to 99 percent of our citizens,” according to Mikhail Degtyarev, the conservative politician behind the measure. According to Russian Today, Degtyarev is also developing a proposal to reintroduce a ban on gay blood and organ donors (a similar ban is in effect in the United States, though it has been denounced by the American Medical Association and other public health groups).

+ Zimbabwean President Robert Mugab used his inaugural speech (for his seventh election win thus far) to hate on homos. Spoiler alert: the word filthy is used twice in a row like when you really mean it.

+ In Cameroon, no gay bar is safe. Which is a damn shame.

+ Some churches take simple steps toward homophobia, like pre-emptively making it clear that they don’t do gay marriage. Others just exile LGBT-supportive parents.

Geeks! In The Good Way.

9 of the 15 Google Science Fair finalists are girls! Because of reverse sexism probably, right. If that’s not enough inspiration for you, check out the 28 women thinkers of the Internet Age whom Wired seems to have missed out on in general.

All That She Wants Is Another Baby

Meet the Israeli couple who refuses to do their surrogacy anywhere else – no matter who or what stands in their way.

You Should Give

+ Slut: A Documentary: from the

I’ve shared my diaries from when I was sexually bullied in middle school on The UnSlut Project website. Many women and girls have contributed their own stories. Now it’s time to spread the word. “Slut: A Documentary Film” will demonstrate the extent of sexual bullying and slut shaming in our schools, media, and culture; and explore the steps we can all take to work toward change right here in the United States and Canada.

+ Black is Blue: A Black transman security guard struggles with his identity after meeting an ex-lover from his past.

You Should Go

+ Time to Werk Those Pecs again!

Werk Those Pecs is BACK AT IT AGAIN, and this time we’re showing our love for everyone’s favorite life of the party:

*Bryn Kelly.*

We’re bringing our hottest lineup yet, so bring the ruckus & we’ll take care of the rest. Dance, drink, and raise money for a top-shelf gal!

+ Thursday, August 29th
= 9:00 PM – 4:00 AM
= The Knitting Factory [Williamsburg]

+ The 5th annual DYKEADENCE, celebrated over Labor Day weekend in New Orleans, is a collaborative community effort to create and organize safe high-quality queer Southern Decadence events for women, trans people and people of color and their friends and allies. All are welcome to take part in the glittery, enthralling, sexy, titillating events going down! Here they are:

Wednesday, August 28th – 8 p.m. – Esoterotica – Dial D for Dirty at the Allways

Thursday August 29th – Marigny Bar Crawl Join us as we start off with a walking tour of the Marigny’s finest bars. As the night progresses you will learn why it is called a bar crawl and not a bar walk.

Friday August 30th – 8 p.m. – The Yes Girls Vagina Show *actual name to be announced soon* at John Paul’s Join The Yes Girls at John Paul’s for their newest show, especially written for Dykeadence! – Queerlesque! – Two amazing shows planned, times TBA, both shows will be at the Allways!

Saturday August 31st – 8 p.m. – The Yes Girls Vagina Show at John Paul’s – Grrl Spot presents Fleurt at Eiffel Society – time TBA

Sunday September 1st – 11 a.m. Pre-parade party at John Paul’s – 2 p.m. Dykeadence walks in the Decadence Parade – Post-parade pool party at Country Club – 8 p.m. – The Yes Girls Vagina Show at John Paul’s – 9 p.m. – God-des and She perform at Country Club

Survey Says: Gay is Still Not Okay in Singapore, Won’t Be Any Time Soon

In Singapore, a nation-wide survey by the Institute of Policy Studies (IPS) found that “society in general did not accept gay lifestyles” and was “even less supportive of same-sex marriage.” The survey was done as part of a year-long project called Our Singapore Conversation (OSC), meant to signal a step back from government-directed progress as it brought citizens together to discuss the nation’s future.

In support of the Our Singapore Conversation (OSC), a representative survey of 4,000 Singaporeans was conducted by the Institute of Policy Studies (IPS) in conjunction with the OSC Secretariat from Dec 2012 to Jan 2013. The survey aimed to provide a snapshot of the priorities, values and preferences of Singaporeans.

The fact that these questions were asked at all – alongside issues such as housing, education and healthcare – is likely reflective of a political climate in which the concerns of LGB(T) people are increasingly in the spotlight: two constitutional challenges have been filed against Section 377A (a law which criminalises gay sex), Pink Dot (an annual gathering of LGBT people and straight allies) has seen considerable year-on-year expansion, and organised civil activism is at an unprecedented level. The only other key area explored under the “Social Values” section of the survey was state censorship.

However, surprising absolutely no one, these survey questions were very, very poorly done.

That’s Not What She Said: Misrepresenting the Results

Broken down by age group and education level, here is what the OSC survey found its respondents had to say about “gay lifestyles”:

Overall, 47% of the sample group “rejects gay lifestyles.” 47% does not make so much as a simple majority, much less “society in general,” and yet, unsurprisingly, this is the angle both the IPS report and mainstream media coverage has chosen to take.

It could be similarly argued that the counterclaim of “53% are neutral or supportive of gay lifestyles” would be liberal spin, and perhaps it would – except no headlines are screaming this, so it’s also inconsequential. It’s worth bearing in mind that social progress does not require that a majority “accepts gay lifestyles”: it simply requires that most are okay with it or don’t care either way. Hearteningly, it seems that we’re there.

LGBT & straight volunteers at Pink Dot
via Pink Dot SG

I am additionally skeptical of claims that the survey results lend credence to the popular narrative that most are unmoved by the issue. Dr Leong Chan Hoong, an IPS Senior Research Fellow, said, “Many Singaporeans are just indifferent to this issue, and the large percentage of ‘neutral’ corroborated that.”

It is true that 27% is a pretty large group of people reserving judgment or expressing indifference. Yet it is just as true that 73% – an actual, clear majority – are distinctly polarised on this.

In interpreting the results for the media, Dr Leong further mischaracterises the nature of the tension between these two polarised groups, using the analogy of right/left-handers:

“It doesn’t matter if a person is left-handed, even if the majority [is right-handed]. However, if left-handed people insist that we put in place an alternative left-handed device for every gadget, then, of course, there will be tension between the two groups.”

As mentioned earlier, it’s not clear that it really “doesn’t matter if a person is left-handed.” More importantly, it’s not true that us metaphorically left-handed people are “[insisting] that we put in place an alternative left-handed device for every gadget.” This presumes, firstly, that left-handed devices already exist – and they don’t. There are no provisions made for LGBTQ people (in stark contrast to the plenty put in place for heterosexual married people) in access to state institutions and resources at every level, from decriminalisation and anti-discrimination protections to access to public housing and healthcare.

Second, it also goes right back to this bizarre and yet strongly prevalent idea that we’re “promoting alternative lifestyles” with our devious left-handedness, and that the resultant aggression is our fault for asking too much when really people would’ve let us be if we’d just kept quiet.

Why don’t we have an alternative left-handed device for every gadget?

However the statistics are spun, the fact that 47% of Singaporeans have expressed negative attitudes about “gay lifestyles” is still a concern. These people aren’t apathetic, they’re actively homophobic in some way or form. But how? We run into yet another problem when we find that “gay lifestyles,” much less what it means to “reject” or “accept” them, has no meaning, which brings us to:

Asking All the Wrong Questions: Flaws in the Survey’s Design

So, “gay lifestyles.”

sometimes i imagine ducks pro-creating to the music of Backstreet Boys, and then the ducks take over the world. #gaylifestyles

— swagquack (@quacko_quack) August 25, 2013

https://twitter.com/POZboySG/status/371881585760407552

I don’t care. I am promoting my gay lifestyle. It is now Major Gay Lifestyle.

— Benjamin "Mr Miyagi" Lee (@miyagi) August 26, 2013

Most of the critique of the survey so far has been specifically about the use of this phrase, so I’ll point you in the direction of “Not Your Gay Lifestyle” by Sayoni, a queer women’s group and “This “gay lifestyle” bullshit needs to stop” by Kirsten Han, a freelance journalist. I also highly recommend this brilliant piece by artist Tania De Rozario satirising media coverage of the results.

The follow-up question on same-sex marriage simply strikes me as misplaced for a country that hasn’t so much as decriminalised gay sex and a civil society that has not explicitly vocalised this aim. In a survey about values, it is rather disingenuous to highlight a specific policy and especially such an unrealistic one. If we’re going down this route, why not just ask people what they think about 377A?

The integrity of a survey’s results is only as strong as the questions it asks. But honing in on this single issue would lead us to overlook its broader implications, which then brings us to:

This Shit (Sadly) Matters: Implications on Policy, Legislation… and Activism?

No amount of grousing about flawed terminology or methodology, no matter how valid, is going to stop this survey from being taken seriously in ways that matter – and likely at face value, too. Couched in the framework of the largest public engagement drive to date, undertaken by an established academic body and backed by the government, these survey results will influence legislation and political rhetoric for years to come. The 4,000 respondents here matter more than the 21,000 people at Pink Dot, the growing crowds at IndigNation, and everyone who’s participated in the non-government National LGBT Census.

We are not going to be able to discredit this survey or make it irrelevant. So we need to start thinking about what it means for us.

The government’s position for the past few years, mostly specifically on 377A, has quite consistently been “we’ll change when the majority changes.” Whether directly or indirectly, public surveys like these will feed into short-term decisions such as those on the pending constitutional challenges to 377A. The Court will likely pass the buck to Parliament which will then turn to “public opinion.” And here you have said opinion.

Some have seen signs for optimism in the results of this survey, pointing out that those who are younger and have more paper qualifications are less negative about “gay lifestyles.” I have my doubts.

“Singapore goes gay” (or not really… or at all)
via @kixes

I don’t think we can assume the majority is moving slowly but inevitably towards acceptance. I’m not under the illusion that if only the survey had been worded better, it’d have revealed a different reality; I do believe that a significant part of the population is homophobic (not apathetic, but homophobic). While acknowledging that the results of this survey show marked improvements over past (similarly flawed) empirical studies of opinion, I don’t think it wise to take for granted that this will continue to be the case.

Asked whether the greater acceptance of gay lifestyles and same-sex marriage among younger age groups would indicate a more liberal society in future, Associate Professor Tan noted that there were two main theories in academic literature.

“One is that people change from being liberal to being more conservative as they grow older – more like a life-cycle kind of theory,” he said.

“The other theory is that, if you’re born in an era or in a certain generation where people tend to be liberal, you continue to be liberal throughout your life. So, you can’t really tell whether this is the case.”

The increasing visibility of the LGBTQ movement in Singapore has been met with vicious backlash, most notably from the leadership of Christian megachurches. It is far from a balanced fight: while Pink Dot’s 21,000 supporters is a figure (rightfully) bandied around with pride, Faith Community Baptist Church (FCBC)’s Lawrence Khong leads a 10,000-strong church and further sees himself fit to speak for LoveSingapore, “an informal, relational network of some 100 churches with a membership of at least 40,000 Christians.” Opposition politician Vincent Wijeysingha came out recently, but he clearly has significantly less sway (and one less political seat) than Emeritus Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong, who personally visited FCBC and who sits in a Parliament in which Christians are overrepresented.

The idea that most people don’t care is likely to hold less water as people become more politically engaged overall. There is no predicting which side their views will fall on this, and no use just hoping it’ll be on ours.

ESM Goh Chok Tong with the FCBC congregation
via FCBC

I’d further argue that the odds are stacked against us because while we can critique Leong’s left-handed analogy, to many people it probably seems that LGBT rights, especially same-sex marriage, would negatively impact straight people here — and they have reason to feel that way. We live under a government that quite specifically privileges the heteronormative two-parent nuclear family and places citizens in hierarchical order – sometimes competition – for access to state resources. Allowing queer people to get married and recognising queer-parented households as families means permitting us access to the plethora of policy privileges currently reserved for heterosexual citizens in housing, parenting provisions, and so on, and those resources are already perceived to be in short supply.

Focusing specifically on housing, which is both a key concern for all Singaporeans going forward and one in which discrimination based on sexuality (and marital status) is most apparent, the recent move to allow (a very small group of) single people to buy flats was welcomed but raised persistent fears about rising housing prices and the shortage of public housing. These concerns will only intensify – and have the potential to turn highly antagonistic – if gay married people are given housing ballot tickets too.

When people feel they’re losing out, they turn against the people they think they’re losing to. We see this in anger against immigrants (taking our jobs) and ethnic minorities (having too many babies, straining state welfare). As a minority group, not only will LGBT people always be vulnerable to changeable majority sentiment, current policies that privilege a certain family structure actively incentivise our exclusion.

via Pink Dot SG

More fundamentally, delving too deep into what the majority says and why runs the risk of losing sight that the rights of minority groups should never be subject to the whims of the majority. We cannot afford to wait to see if straight people will allow us to be and then let them decide how they will.

Yet this is clearly the path the government is choosing to take, so if nothing else, let the shitstorm this single survey statistic – symptomatic of a much larger system of institutionalised discrimination – has inspired remind us that our solution does not lie in the state. Our liberation will not come from appealing to the “silent majority.” Keep at “family-friendly” events like Pink Dot and challenges within the legal system, but never let this be the sum total of our movement: we need to be much, much more than “accepted.”

Anti-Gay Violence in Cameroon Rises: “We Are Calling on Our Government to Stop Waiting”

Feature Image via ilga.org

On Wednesday, over 100 people gathered for a rally organized by the Association of Cameroonian Youth to post homophobic signs on suspected gay-friendly bars and to distribute anti-gay pamphlets in Cameroon’s capital city, Yaounde. Just one month after Cameroonian LGBT activist Eric Ohena Lembembe was found dead, the violence against the LGBT population continues to rise.

The participants of the rally marched through Yaounde carrying the Cameroon flag and wearing shirts with anti-gay slogans. They declared it the “Day Against Homosexuality” and claimed it was to honor the death of a student who was “assaulted by homosexuals” and found in a hotel in 2006. The Association of Cameroonian Youth wants to see stricter enforcement of anti-gay laws despite the fact Cameroon already prosecutes the most LGBT citizens in sub-Saharan African. Most of them are arrested, charged and sentenced for up to five years with little evidence of same-sex involvement.

Via queerville.com

Michal Togue, a lawyer who works in LGBT rights, believes that the government was in support of this rally and noted that many gay activists have been actively receiving threats of violence:

“I have the impression that the persecution of homosexuals is sharply on the rise since Lembembe was murdered. A demonstration like the one today is clear proof. If I tell you I’m not scared, then I’m joking. I’m scared for my security.”

Although Article 347 of Cameroon’s penal code already violates the country’s constitution as well as human rights standards, the organizer of the Association of Cameroonian Youth, Sismondi Barley Bidjocka, says they are pushing to increase the maximum sentence to twenty years in prison. Bidjocka was quoted: “It is a struggle to push the authorities to clearly assert our rejection of homosexuality as a nation, and to increase the punishment.” While the ACY believes current punishment isn’t harsh enough, the daily harassment and violence that Cameroonian LGBT population faces is rampant.

Via newint.org

Togue also said that two transgender women were attacked last week in Yaounde, adding to the countless reports of targeted aggression in the city. While police did break up this attack, Togue pointed out that the rally should have also been dismantled, considering that large-scale gatherings are required to have government approval.

The Human Rights Watch outlined numerous cases involved the anti-gay law in a 55-page report, “Guilty by Association,” released in March of this year. Though Cameroon president Paul Biya claimed earlier this year that “minds were changing” about homosexuality in the country, the government has taken no formal action to prevent violence or change the prosecution of LGBT people. Groups like Yaounde-based CAMFAIDS, (which Lembembe was involved with), and Alternatives-Cameroun continue to work to decriminalize homosexuality and pursue equality. Director of Alternatives-Cameroun, Yves Yomb, has put out a challenge to the government to stand up for all citizens: “We are calling on our government to stop waiting around helplessly for minds to change, and instead to show a bit of courage… and [to] inform the public that this is a matter of upholding fundamental rights.”

LGBT rights continues to be a controversial issue throughout Africa; homosexuality is illegal in 38 countries, and in a few, punishable by death. The gay rights and AIDS awareness organizations have staged protests, reached out for international support and as recently as July, AIDs workers have gone on strike. After Lembembe’s murder, his lawyer, Alice Nkom, was quoted: “We are afraid there will never be justice.” As the activists in Yaounde stay consistent in their fight, hopefully the international news coverage and scruntiny will increase the pressure on the Cameroon government to protect all citizens regardless of sexuality.

Back to the 80’s and Section 28: Anti-Gay School Policy Resurfaces in the UK

Investigations have begun into a number of UK schools identified as having homophobic sex and relationships education (SRE) policies reminiscent of Section 28, an infamous Thatcher-era law. Gay Star News first reported that it had found three schools with such policies, quickly updating it to eight within hours. The British Humanist Association (BHA) later identified 45 schools with SRE policies “that either replicate Section 28 of the Local Government Act 1988 or are unhelpfully vague on the issue.”

Some examples drawn from the BHA’s research include:

King James’s School: “The school will aim to: Ensure that homosexuality is not promoted as a pretended family relationship.”

The Bridge Academy: “Teachers will not engage in the promotion of any sexual orientation or sexual activity.”

Grace Academies Solihull, Coventry and Darlaston: “The Academy recognises the need to address the issue of homosexuality and the need to provide education related to the spread of HIV/AIDS which will, of necessity, include reference to homosexuals and bisexual behaviour.”

A Change.org petition directed at six of the implicated academies has since seen some success in having schools withdraw their outdated policies. Other schools, when approached by campaigners, reporters or MPs, characterised the problem as “administrative error” or “old policy” and have since done the same.

Not all schools have responded, however, and not all are likely to have simply “overlooked” this issue.

Grace Academy, one of the schools with an anti-gay SRE policy (via Gay Star News)

Section 28 of the Local Government Act 1988 declared that a local authority “shall not intentionally promote homosexuality or publish material with the intention of promoting homosexuality” or “promote the teaching in any maintained school of the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship.” Schools complied by self-censoring their activities and syllabi.

The law was vigorously opposed by activists for more than a decade, defining an era that is broadly seen as the galvanising point for the modern UK LGBTQ movement and that included the founding of Stonewall, now the country’s largest LGB charity and lobbying group. Particularly key to these activists’ critique of Section 28 was its role in increasing homophobic bullying.

[…] a study by the Institute of Education at London University has found the clause created “an atmosphere of confusion and fear” that was discouraging staff from intervening to stop an epidemic of homophobic abuse in school playgrounds and corridors.

The problem was explored in in-depth confidential interviews with teachers. “Because they do not know how to comply with Section 28, they err on the side of caution. As a result, they choose to ignore homophobic harassment and bullying whenever possible. This creates a permissive environment in which pupils believe they can, and do, get away with it,” said Debbie Epstein who led the interviews.

The law was eventually repealed in Scotland in 2000 and in England & Wales in 2003.

A drag queen in Manchester protesting against Stagecoach, whose owner publicly supported Section 28 (via Wikipedia)

With regard to the recent resurfacing of Section 28-like policies, Conservative Secretary of State for Education Michael Gove has yet to respond despite Labour Shadow Minister Stephen Twigg‘s recent call for action. “Michael Gove must intervene to ensure that all schools obey their duties under the Equality Act. It seems that some schools, perhaps not knowingly, are still using guidance from before Labour’s repeal of Section 28.”

The Department for Education (DfE) has issued a statement saying, “All schools can draw up their sex education policy but they must ensure that in everything they do they do not discriminate unfairly on the grounds of sexuality. The Department for Education will be looking into these schools.”

Michael Gove (via The Spectator)

Beyond the provisions of the Equality Act, however, the government’s hands are likely to be tied: while the DfE provides SRE guidance for schools, academies and Free Schools, there is no mandatory standardised sex education curriculum. In England, secondary schools are “required to provide an SRE programme which includes (as a minimum) information about sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and HIV/AIDS” but “other elements of personal, social and health education (PSHE), including SRE, are nonstatutory.” Primarily schools can opt out of providing SRE altogether outside of what is covered in science classes.

Furthermore, a disproportionate number of the schools identified with these anti-gay policies are Free Schools and academies, which, unlike community schools, are not controlled by local authorities. Free Schools were introduced by the current Liberal Democrat-Conservative coalition government in 2010, building on the previous Labour government’s Academies Programme. Maintaining the balance between oversight and flexibility for an increasing number of autonomous schools has been an ongoing debate in the UK for years. Organisations like the BHA are particularly concerned about the increasing number of faith-based schools, noting that the amount of control given to these schools could lead to them “teaching from an unshared, narrow perspective that is inappropriate to some pupils.”

Given the amount of attention these homophobic school policies have received in just a few days and the quick actions on the part of some schools, this issue could hopefully be resolved quickly. At the same time, this episode has revealed persistent and glaring cracks in the UK government’s broader education policies that compromise its ability to protect marginalised children, and these will take far longer to fix.

Binary or Blank: Germany Allows Parents to Refrain From Gender Assignment at Birth

Beginning this November, parents in Germany will be able to opt out of designating their children “male” or “female” at birth. The new law allows the gender field on birth certificates to be left blank, leaving it up to the individual to choose whether to identify as male, female or neither later on in life.

The German Federal Constitutional Court earlier ruled that being able to legally identify as one’s “deeply felt and lived” gender is a personal right.

Imagine all the colours we could have! (via Sutanta Aditya / AFP)

While the law will primarily affect intersex people, it is likely to also have effects in areas of legislation affecting trans* people, including “comprehensive reform” of registration rules for other legal documents such as ID cards and passports that presently restrict gender options to “M” or “F.” German family law publication FamRZ has recommended the introduction of a third gender category designated by “X”, partly to circumvent difficulties intersex and trans* individuals might encounter travelling overseas.

Marriage law is another major area that has been identified as set for reform. Marriage in Germany is defined as between a man and a woman, while same-sex couples can apply for civil partnerships. Neither arrangement has provisions for non-binary-identified individuals.

Germany is the first country in Europe to make this step in recognition of non-binary genders. While Finland has similarly made “significant progress” in this area, no concrete legislative change has yet been made. Australia is commonly cited as the first country to allow passport holders to use “X” (meaning “indetermined/unspecified/intersex”) in 2011, followed shortly by New Zealand in 2012, though hijras in India and Pakistan have been granted legal recognition since 2005 and 2009 respectively.

In June 2012, the European Commission released a report titled “Trans and Intersex People: Discrimination on the Grounds of Sex, Gender Identity and Gender Expression” which found that discrimination is still widespread in all EU countries, with “negative attitudes towards trans and intersex people […] often directly correlated to the importance that a determinate society places on the binary gender model.” It noted that the situation was made particularly complex as “legal recognition and rights afforded to this community are often intertwined with specific medical and psychological obligatory requirements,” and explored the dissonance between rigid laws and the actual lived experiences/choices of trans* and intersex people.

Silvian Agius, a co-author of the report, has expressed his frustration with the EU’s lack of progress since then.

According to Silvan Agius, policy director at human rights organisation ILGA Europe – the European chapter of the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association – the European Union is lagging behind on the issue. Though Brussels commissioned a report on trans and intersex minorities in 2010, and has since attempted to coordinate efforts to prohibit gender discrimination, progress has been halting.

“Things are moving slower than they should at the European level,” says Agius. “Though Brussels has ramped up efforts to promote awareness of trans and intersex discrimination, I would like to see things speed up.”

EU non-discrimination law still does not explicitly recognise gender identity or expression, though those who have undergone or are intending to undergo gender-confirming surgery may be protected by provisions on discrimination on the grounds of sex. Proponents of Germany’s new law, however, are optimistic that this move will place pressure on Brussels and perhaps other EU member-states to step up protections and provisions for trans* and intersex people.

What The Heck Are LGBTs Gonna Do About The Sochi Olympics?

Since the nationwide “Don’t Say Gay” bill passed in June, you can be arrested in Russia for telling a minor that gay people exist, being part of a public LGBT assembly, or for “socially equating traditional and non-traditional sexual relationships.” The new laws are both wide-reaching and scarily vague, and serve to legitimize and institutionalize an existing national attitude towards gay people that positions them as, at best, second-class citizens and, at worst, subhuman (State Broadcasting Director Dmitri Kisilev recently appeared on Russia’s most popular news program saying that gay people’s hearts should be deemed unfit for transplants, to wild applause). Gay parents who can manage it are fleeing the country lest their children be taken away. LGBT teenagers are being abducted and abused by anti-gay extremists, with no reponse from authorities. The rules also apply to foreign tourists, as four Dutch filmmakers found out when they were recently detained and questioned by police.

Interesting timing, considering that Russia is in for a giant influx of foreign tourists in about six months, along with a searing dose of international spotlight. On August 1st, Russian Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko told a state news agency that anyone advocating a “nontraditional sexual orientation” at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics will be “held accountable… Even if he’s a sportsman, when he comes to a country, he should respect its laws.” Legislator Vitaly Milonov told the BBC that the Russian government lacks the authority to suspend the laws even if they wanted to. A week later, Mutko, apparently training for the Strategic Backpedaling event, asked the law’s critics to “calm down” and assured everyone that as long as LGBT athletes and spectators keep quiet, everything will be fine, because Russia’s constitution guarantees “rights for the private life and privacy.”

SOCHI’S OLYMPIC PARK, UNDER CONSTRUCTION (VIA THE ATLANTIC)

But promising not to engage in an all-out witch hunt is not the same as actually guaranteeing anyone’s right to self-expression or an honest existence. And even if Olympic participans and visitors are totally safe, these laws will go on making life miserable for millions of Russian citizens long after the stadium is empty. Back in February, Kristen took the LGBT athletic community’s pulse regarding Sochi after a Russian judge pre-emptively banned the Olympic Village Pride House. Now that these laws have passed, the trepidation expressed by these out athletes is finally spreading to the rest of the world. What should we — as individuals, committees, and nations — do about Sochi? What can we do, and what have we done before? Here’s a breakdown of a few options that have been presented, along with how they’ve worked in the past.

Boycott the games entirely

Actor and playwright Harvey Fierstein called for an all-out boycott in a recent New York Times op-ed, drawing a parallel to the 1936 Berlin games and saying that “there is a price for tolerating intolerance.” British comedian Stephen Fry echoed this in an open letter to the International Olympic Committee and British Prime Minister David Cameron:

“The IOC absolutely must take a firm stance on behalf of the shared humanity it is supposed to represent against the barbaric, fascist law that Putin has pushed through the Duma… Let us realise that in fact, sport is cultural. It does not exist in a bubble outside society or politics… An absolute ban on the Russian Winter Olympics of 2014 on Sochi is simply essential. Stage them elsewhere in Utah, Lillyhammer, anywhere you like. At all costs Putin cannot be seen to have the approval of the civilised world.”

STEPHEN FRY (VIA RT.COM)

The history of Olympic boycotts is long and various. Olympic historian David Wallechinsky considers the 1956 Melbourne Games to be the site of the first true boycotts, and they started out with a bang — seven different countries refused to participate for three different reasons.  Subsequent withdrawals have followed in this spirit — they’ve been used to show dissatisfaction with host countries’ politics (as when Taiwan refused to participate in the 1976 Montreal Games when the Canadian government wouldn’t recognize them as part of the Republic of China), with the International Olympic Committee’s decisions (as when twenty-six African nations boycotted the 1976 Montreal Games after the IOC refused to ban New Zealand even though they had sent a rugby team to tour apartheid South Africa), and as a tit-for-tat (as when the Soviet Union boycotted the 1984 Los Angeles Games four years after the US stepped out of theirs). Spain even invented The People’s Olympiad in 1936 as a replacement for, and protest against, the Berlin games (although the Spanish Civil War broke out before they could go through with it).

The United States has boycotted only once, though we came close another time. In 1936, when Hitler was coming into power, there were intense discussions as to whether the US should stay out of the Berlin Games. In the end, Nazi sympathizers within the US Olympic Committee tipped the scales, and the US participated — a decision made, as Fierstein points out, to the retroactive regret of many. Forty-four years later, thanks to Jimmy Carter, the US convinced 62 other countries to join it in boycotting the 1980 Moscow Games, a decision now “universally reviled as Cold War posturing that accomplished nothing.” So it looks like we’re 0 for 2 in terms of boycott decisions.

THE 1936 BERLIN OLYMPICS WERE A HUGE PROPAGANDA PLATFORM FOR THE THIRD REICH (VIA CURRYBET)

Large-scale boycotts seem unlikely this year. President Obama told reporters Friday that, although “nobody’s more offended than me about some of the anti-gay and lesbian legislation that you’ve been seeing in Russia,” the US will not boycott the Games, pointing out that there are many countries we disagree with that we “do work with” anyway. He spoke more about this on The Tonight Show earlier this week. British Prime Minister David Cameron followed suit on Saturday, tweeting that he shares Fry’s “deep concern” but believes “we can better challenge prejudice as we attend” the games. Many experts and athletes agree, arguing that if countries boycott, discussion of whether or not they’ve “overreacted” would overshadow any message they were attempting to send, and that the athletes, rather than the Russian government, would suffer in the end.

What’s the attitude on the ground from Russia’s LGBT community, however? Last week, 23 Russian LGBT activists spoke out in support of a boycott, but in a recent article on Gay Star News, Anastasia Smirnova, general project manager for the Russian LGBT Network, urges allies not to boycott:

“We believe calls for the spectators to boycott Sochi, for the Olympians to retreat from competition, and for governments, companies and national Olympic committees to withdraw from the event risk to transform the powerful potential of the Games in a less powerful gesture that would prevent the rest of the world from joining LGBT people, their families and allies in Russia in solidarity and taking a firm stance against the disgraceful human rights record in this country.”

Ban Russia from participating

 Some advocate for a reverse approach, calling on the International Olympic Committee to ban Russia from competing in their own games. Cyd Zeigler, co-founder of Outsports.com, argues that discrimination against any athletes directly contradicts the Olympic Charter:

“‘The practice of sport is a human right,’ the charter reads. ‘Every individual must have the possibility of practising sport, without discrimination of any kind and in the Olympic spirit’… That’s not just an isolated sentence in the midst of dozens of charter pages; it’s right up front, in the section called ‘Fundamental Principles of Olympism.’ …And the Russian law doesn’t just violate one word or one clause of the Olympic Charter; it violates the entire statement. The law doesn’t just punish Russian athletes; it subjects competitors from every nation to discrimination and flies in the face of the Olympic spirit.”

Zeigler argues that making Russia watch its own Games from the sidelines is the best way to ensure an impact that goes beyond one Olympics — both in Russia and internationally, as it will send a message to similarly homophobic countries that want to host major sporting events — and to involve the Russian populace (“instead of asking our athletes to carry messages that would fall on deaf Russian ears, it would drive Russian Olympic hopefuls to speak out to their own government”). He cites all sorts of past precedents to back himself up — South Africa was banned from competing from 1964 to 1992 because apartheid went against the Olympic spirit. Afghanistan was banned from the 2000 Sydney Games because of human rights abuses of women; after a call for similar bans of Qatar and Saudi Arabia, all three countries included women on their teams in 2012.

TAHMINA KOHISTANI, AFGHANISTAN’S ONLY FEMALE ATHLETE AT THE 2012 GAMES (VIA RADIO FREE EUROPE/RADIO LIBERTY)

Although banning a country from their own Games is a more difficult endeavor, the IOC has pulled that off before, too — the 1920 Olympics were supposed to be held in Budapest, but because Hungary was a German ally during WWI, the IOC transferred them to Antwerp. George Takei and thousands of others have signed a petition asking the IOC to move the whole thing to Vancouver. However, judging by the IOC’s recent statements, which have consisted of “little beyond tardy and lukewarm criticism,” this seems vastly unlikely.

Let the media spread the word

If there’s going to be no official action, maybe we can at least count on Bob Costas. NBC paid $775 million for exclusive American broadcasting rights at the Sochi games. Human Rights Campaign President Chad Griffin recently wrote to the company’s CEO, pointing out that when he bought this privilege, he also purchased:

“a unique opportunity — and responsibility — to expose this inhumane and unjust law to the millions of American viewers who will turn in to watch the games… it wouldn’t be right to air the opening ceremonies, which is an hours-long advertisement for the host country, without acknowledging that a whole segment of the Russian population — not to mention foreign athletes and visitors — can be jailed for an immutable aspect of their identity.”

WILL THE RAINBOW PEACOCK LIVE UP TO ITS STRIPES?

An LGBT rights group called Truth Wins Out did Griffin one better and started a petition asking NBC to make Rachel Maddow a “Special Human Rights Correspondent” during the Games. The National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association (NLGJA) also released a statement asking NBC to “include LGBT athletes in your coverage, and put into context the personal challenge attending the Winter Olympic Games presents for them,” as well as offering their combined expertise, perspective, and assistance.

As of yet, NBC has failed to bite. Beyond promising their LGBT employees that they will do “everything possible to keep them safe” despite the laws, and making statements about how they “strongly support equal rights and the fair treatment of all people,” the broadcasting brass has been pretty vague about how they plan to deal with the human rights abuses occuring in the country they are, traditionally, supposed to be buttering up. NBC Sports Group chairman Mark Lazarus said that the laws will be addressed “if they impact any part of the Olympic Games.” This seems less like a promise to tackle the hard issues, and more like a plea to the Russian government to sweep anything under the rug that won’t look good over uplifting horn music, not unlike Sports Minister Mutko’s plea to the international media to “calm down.” A Media Matters report shows that, as of August 9th, NBC had devoted about 12 minutes of airtime to the upcoming Games, only 3% of which even mentioned the discriminatory legislation.

(VIA MEDIAMATTERS)

NBC’s track record at past games isn’t exactly gold either. They’ve held exclusive American broadcasting rights since 1996, and as scholar Cassandra Schwarz points out, “Olympic Games media coverage has become increasingly limited, allowing the IOC to have greater control over popular perceptions of the Games.” During the the 2000 Sydney Games, for example, “In hopes of downplaying Australia’s long and brutal history of racism towards Aboriginal peoples, the Olympics was promoted with an aim to package “Aboriginality” as a recognized and celebrated component of Australia’s “multiculturalism.” So rather than drawing international attention to humans rights abuses that were still occurring, the involvement of a marginalized people just helped legitimize the false and flattering image the Australian government wanted. (Obviously similar histories are swept under the rug every time the United States hosts the Olympics, regardless of television outlet.)

The IOC and major media outlets also came under fire during the 2008 Beijing Games for counting on the country to clean up its act before the games and for failing to address the degree to which it didn’t. Beijing itself was called out for silencing critics, giving only lip service to protesters, and blocking internet access. Russia is doing the same — reports by Human Rights Watch show that authorities have already “harassed and pursued criminal charges against journalists, apparently in retaliation for their legitimate reporting” on abuse of migrant workers, disappearing taxpayer money, and forcible eviction associated with the Games. Based on past experience, we can’t count on small news outlets to have the resources or clout necessary to properly chase these stories, and we can’t count on NBC to use its considerable influence to do it either.

AN IMAGE FROM ARTIST VASILY SLONOV’S “WELCOME! SOCHI 2014” EXHIBIT, WHICH WAS SHUT DOWN BY AUTHORITIES (VIA IKONO)

When people talk about how the US dropped the ball in 1936, they often mention how there was hardly a contrary peep from US journalists, as they were taken in by Germany’s well-scrubbed facade. Let’s not let that happen again.

Organize official protests

In another New York Times editorial (the Gray Lady has good Olympic instincts), Frank Bruni imagined the US team staging a “not ostentatious,” “subtly recurring,” and “wordlessly mocking” rainbow flag parade during the opening ceremonies. He went so far as to suggest “something small stitched into the uniforms” to serve as a national visual statement.

Historian David Wallechinsky agrees that people should call the Russian government’s bluff, suggesting that athletes “smuggle banners into one of the stadiums” and asking “what are the Russian authorities going to do, arrest people right in the middle of the Olympics?” (And if they did, NBC would certainly have to report on it). Leading Russian LGBT activist Nikolai Alekseyev is organizing a Sochi Pride March to coincide with the opening ceremony (his earlier efforts to open a Sochi Pride House were shut down by the authorities). Alekseyev hopes that a march “will be much more effective [than a boycott] to draw attention to official homophobia in Russia all around the world and expose the hypocrisy of the International Olympic Committee.”

NIKOLAI ALEKSEYEV IS ARRESTED AT A 2011 PROTEST IN MOSCOW (VIA VIJESTI)

But there’s a problem with this idea. Rule 50 of the Olympic Charter expressly forbids “demonstration or political, religious or racial propaganda,” and since Russia’s law has overtly politicized LGBT identities, even an expression of solidarity now counts as a political demonstration. (This is why Tommie Smith and John Carlos were disqualified by the IOC following their iconic demonstration on the medal stand during the 1968 Mexico City Games.)

During the 2008 Beijing Olympics, IOC President Jacques Rogge lifted the all-out ban and allowed athletes to speak freely in interviews, even on Olympic grounds (but not in certain locations, including on the podium). Pro-Tibet protesters were able to briefly disrupt torch-passing ceremonies and unfurl banners in public places, but all were quickly detained. Olympic athletes, fearing IOC rules, loss of sponsorship, and accusations of bad sportsmanship, seem to think about organizing group protests more often than they actually do it. The athletic humanitarian organization Team Darfur considered large-scale demonstrations at the Beijing Olympics, but after their founder, Joey Cheek, had his visa yanked by Chinese authorities, they chose a subtler form of protest instead by asking former Sudanese “Lost Boy” Lopez Lomong to carry the US flag during the opening ceremonies. The German national team thought about wearing orange terry-cloth robes in solidarity with Tibet during the Beijing Olympics, but then decided the issue was “too complicated” to take a stand about. It remains to be seen whether the IOC will lighten the restrictions again this year, but it’s possible, especially as they’ve made several statements condemning the laws. Regardless, an organized protest, especially by a large group of athletes, would be a powerful way to get this issue into the news.

LOPEZ LOMONG CARRIES THE FLAG IN BEIJING (VIA CNN)

Count on individual athletes to take a stand

When Obama announced that the US would not be boycotting the Games, he added that he’s “really looking forward to… some gay and lesbian athletes bringing home the gold or silver or bronze, which I think would go a long way in rejecting the kind of attitudes we’re seeing there.” Nikolai Alekseyev would like to go even further, hoping that “all the sportsmen wear rainbow pins and talk about the issues during the press conferences” (former US Olympic diver Greg Louganis agrees, suggesting “a visible pin, an armband, [or] a bracelet”). Some individual athletes, including New Zealand speed skater Blake Skjellerup, have already pledged to wear some kind of solidarity symbol and to “be themselves” throughout the games.

There aren’t many examples of individual athletes protesting at the Olympics (beyond the statements occasionally inherent in being themselves and being awesome). At the 1908 London games, Irish-American shot-putter Ralph Rose refused to dip his flag to King Edward the VII, who hadn’t yet recognized Irish independence, during the opening ceremonies. The most famous example comes from Tommie Smith and John Carlos, the American sprinters who took home gold and bronze at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics and left the world with an indelibe image and no way to keep ignoring racial inequality in America. Smith and Carlos came to the podium “dressed to protest: wearing black socks and no shoes to symbolize African-American poverty, a black glove to express African-American strength and unity. (Smith also wore a scarf, and Carlos beads, in memory of lynching victims.) As the national anthem played and an international TV audience watched, each man bowed his head and raised a fist.” The silver medalist, Australian Peter Norman, wore an Olympic Project for Human Rights badge in solidarity.

SMITH AND CARLOS AT THE 1968 MEXICO CITY GAMES

Although they were banished by the IOC afterwards for breaking rule 50, and “returned home to a wave of opprobrium,” Carlos regrets nothing. “To be heard is greater than a boycott,” he told reporter Dave Zirin this year when asked to give advice to LGBT and ally athletes at Sochi. “If you stand for justice and equality, you have an obligation to find the biggest possible megaphone to let your feelings be known.” The Olympics are a globe-sized megaphone, and people at all levels will get a chance to wield it—leaders of nations, heads of committees, CEOs, reporters, coaches, athletes, fans. The whole world watches the Olympics. Let’s find a way to make sure they listen, too.

From India to Singapore, Queer Visibility in South and Southeast Asia is On the Rise

It’s been a big summer for South and Southeast Asia when it comes to LGBT and queer news. There were pride parades, lesbian couples eloping left and right, and a whole lot of backlash — but also some hope. The most important aspect of this news, however, is that it was reported at all. Historically, many South and Southeast Asian countries have maintained silence on queer issues. These incidents were reported not only by Western media, but also by local media in the countries.

In India, two female college students eloped at the end of July in the state of Kerala. One of the fathers filed a police complaint, saying that his daughter was kidnapped by a lesbian with the help of Sangama, a Bangalore-based LGBT rights organization. However, police stopped investigations after the two women released statements saying they are both over the age of consent. The father has now filed a habeas corpus with the Kerala high court.

via Gay Star News

Earlier this year, Rizwana Ansari and Renuka Sisodia eloped and married outside of Bhopal. Again, the parents filed a police complaint, though they originally suspected that a man had eloped with Rizwana.

In Bangladesh, another female couple eloped and married in what is reportedly the first same-sex Bangladeshi marriage. Both 21-year-old Mosammat Sanjida Akte and her 16-year-old wife attended Pirojpur Government Suhrawardy College. They married in a Hindu ceremony in the capital city of Dhaka with the help of an NGO worker. After one of the fathers filed a missing persons report, police found the couple living together in a rental home in Dhaka. The younger woman was returned to her family, and Sanjida is in police custody in Pirojpur, facing charges of abduction and trafficking. If cited for homosexuality, she could face life in prison or up to ten years of hard labor.

via Gay Star News

South Asian cultures have a long history of arranged marriage. Women, considered extensions of a family’s honor, were (and often still are) expected to stay chaste until marriage, and defer the decision of a life partner to their families. Of course, for some South Asians this is changing, but these changes are slow to work their way into non-urban areas.

In 2009 and again in 2013, Bangladesh was under Universal Periodic Review (UPR) by the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC). In 2009, the UPR recommended that Bangladesh decriminalize homosexuality under Section 377, and that the government educate law enforcement and judicial officers about sexual and gender minorities to mitigate abuse and maltreatment of LGBTQ peoples. The Bangladesh government consented to the latter, but rejected the former recommendation. Homosexuality is still criminalized in the country.

Most of South Asia remains hostile to LGBT people, and same-sex relationships are often stigmatized, if not outright outlawed. After being put into effect by the British Raj, Section 377, which criminalizes “unnatural” sex, still holds sway in the penal codes of many former British colonies, including Bangladesh. Nepal decriminalized homosexuality in 2007, and is legally the most LGBT-friendly South Asian country with anti-discrimination laws and ID cards that allow a “third gender” option. In a landmark decision in 2009, the India High Court decriminalized homosexuality, becoming the second South Asian country to do so.

Though same-sex relationships continue to face social stigma, India continues to hold annual queer pride parades. There was even one in Bangalore in December, which was covered by The Hindustan Times, a major Indian newspaper.

via Boston Globe

Speaking of pride parades and glitter, Vietnam held its second LGBT pride parade this weekend. Decked out in rainbows, two hundred paraders biked through Hanoi. Although they didn’t have official governmental permission, police did not stop them. For a communist country that tightly controls all public demonstrations, the tacit permission holds a lot of significance. Even though the country’s state-run newspaper proposed the criminalization of homosexuality in 2002, Vietnam is now considering legalizing same-sex marriage.

via Raw Story

Other parts of Southeast Asia are also facing a shift in the cultural landscape in terms of queer visibility. In June, 21,000 LGBT people and straight allies in Singapore got together for the Pink Dot, or Freedom to Love, campaign. The government kept silent, but like in Vietnam, the event was not stopped, nor was it officially condoned.

via The Economist

So far in Southeast Asia, homosexuality is officially legal in Cambodia, East Timor, Indonesia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam. Same-sex adoption is legal in Cambodia and the Philippines. Like South Asia, in most Southeast Asian countries homosexual behavior is highly stigmatized, and same-sex marriage rights may be a ways away.

For those who live in the U.S., Canada or any other place called The West, it’s increasingly easy to equate LGBTQ rights with marriage, adoption and associated legal rights. As queer rights in Western nations become more and more about legal reform, we shouldn’t lose sight of the larger cultural shifts starting to take place in countries around the world. (This is not to discount countries like Thailand, which have been on the forefront of queer acceptance for a long time.) While legal reform is important, countries like India, Bangladesh and Vietnam are experiencing an even more important sociocultural shift that has the potential to better the lives of their queer citizens, even if it’s harder to measure quantitatively.

LGBTQ issues are gaining increased visibility in the media, both globally and in these specific countries. Stories of struggle and celebration are now covered by official and unofficial media around the world, driving and reflecting a sociocultural shift toward queer visibility. Greater visibility means less isolation and more connection with the global queer community.

Perhaps what’s most notable about the growing visibility of queerness in South and Southeast Asia is that it’s not negative. Police didn’t break up pride celebrations in Vietnam and Singapore. Local news coverage of India’s pride parades, and the coverage of lesbian weddings, is largely neutral. For countries with long histories of homophobia (largely due to colonialism, although that’s a longer article), neutral news coverage could actually signal a cultural shift. Still, much of our queer family faces very real danger, including but not limited to incarceration.

While those in the West may take things like pride parades for granted, we mustn’t forget that forms of queerness are still criminalized and stigmatized in many parts of the world. Queer people are often still seen as social plagues, and our collective struggle needs to involve global consciousness and awareness.

“Burka Avenger” and Problematising the Problematisation of the Burqa

Burka Avenger, a children’s cartoon series featuring a teacher-by-day, superhero-by-night woman protagonist, debuted on Pakistani TV on July 28 to a crowd of fawning internet commentators. Prior to its first episode, which featured Jiya attacking Taliban-like evildoers to protect girls’ access to education, the TV series already had over 20,000 fans on Facebook, an iPhone game, a music video and merchandise.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pdbshf4iPE

Central to much of the discussion – or “controversy,” as many have chosen to frame it – about this new superhero is her choice of the burqa as her disguise. Does it “reappropriate […] a symbol of oppression into a force for good” or “brainwash girls into thinking that a burka gives you power instead of taking it away”?

via Burka Avenger

The show’s website says that its main aims are “to make people laugh, to entertain and to send out positive social messages to the youth,” leaving vague whether the burqa is meant to be part of these “social messages” and if so, how. Creator Haroon Rashid, a 40-year-old Pakistani pop star, was quoted in an interview with NPR responding to criticism of the Avenger’s costume.

She doesn’t wear the burqa during the day – she doesn’t even wear a headscarf, or a hijab or anything like that; she goes about her business as a normal teacher would. And so she chooses to wear the burqa, she’s not oppressed… and on the other end of the spectrum, a lot of female superheroes in the West are objectified, and sort of sexualized in their costumes, like Catwoman and Wonder Woman, and that certainly would not work here.

Nobody is compelled to wear the burqa in Pakistan; nobody is compelled to wear the headscarf or hijab, like they are in other parts of Muslim countries. But some women who do choose to wear the burqa or do choose to wear the hijab, the majority of them do it out of choice, and I’ve learnt this over the years.

Haroon similarly emphasised in an NDTV interview that the choice of the burqa was not intended to do more than give the show a “local, relatable flavour.” The show will feature issues that go beyond education and religious fundamentalism, including sectarian violence, child labour and caring for the environment.

Haroon Rashid & Adil Omar in “Don’t Mess With the Lady in Black”
via Burka Avenger FB

Despite what’s been said in interviews, it seems improbable the team went into this believing that a burqa-clad superhero would be seen as simply a mark of “culture.” The response to this has taken a life of its own; in other words, it’s not a non-issue just because they say it’s one. A number of red flags came up for me while contemplating Haroon’s defence of the cartoon particularly in his uncritical reiteration of several flawed binaries.

1. East / West: Critique of the portrayal of women superheroes is entirely fair, but let’s not pretend that Jiya is neither “objectified” nor “sexualised.” Not only is her “cool, sleek burqa” surprisingly figure-hugging for a modesty garment*, Jiya is a female character literally identified by what she wears. Is this really subversive? The use of Clash of Civilisations-type speak, as if the East and West are clearly defined, fundamentally different and internally homogenous entities, is also suspect, especially when it’s meant to make a point about (the treatment of) women in either.
2. Good Muslim / Bad Muslim: The Good Muslim is “normal” and “doesn’t even wear a headscarf.” The Good Muslim Countries don’t force anyone to do anything. The Good Muslims in the Good Muslim Countries would like you all to see that they have all their Good Modern Liberal Muslim Values lined up, please, because they’re nothing like those Bad Backward Muslims. This dichotomy begs two questions: 1. What is “good” (“modern,” “moderate,” “liberal”) or “bad” (“traditionalist,” “fundamentalist,” “extremist”) and whose standards dictate this? 2. Whenever you say “I don’t do _____,” what is it that you’re trying to say about those who do?
3. Oppressed / Liberated: Oppression is not an either/or situation, nor is it even a spectrum in which liberation is measured by degree. Taking an objectivist view to “liberation” – i.e. that “liberation” is a certain end-state, and it looks like _____ (in this case, being a non-hijabi schoolteacher) – denies the complexities of situational context and non-universal values. To couch it in the language of “choice” is particularly problematic, because choices aren’t made in a vacuum, y’know?

* Note on “modesty” and the veil: I am slightly uncomfortable judging Jiya’s dress in terms of “modesty,” for there is an argument for not being hung up on “appearances and legalistic rulings” when it comes to perceiving the veil from a religious perspective.

via Burka Avenger

More fundamentally, though, why is the question still “why the burqa?”

The burqa almost inevitably comes up in any discussion of the Muslim Woman Experience as the embodiment of Muslim Woman’s Oppression. To be clear: there is no “Muslim Woman Experience” and there is no “Muslim Woman’s Oppression.” There is Islam(s) and women and oppression, which intersect in an infinite number of ways, and with a tonne of other things besides.

I am skeptical about Haroon’s attempt to present the deeply culturally embedded relationship between the burqa and modest dress/behaviour – as well as the other consequences that come with this specific expression of religious practice – as merely a tangential one. It cannot be glossed over that the burqa holds religious and cultural significance that makes it more than an accessory to be taken on and off at will. Burka Avenger is popularly read as a counter-narrative to the rhetoric that burqas are inherently oppressive, but arguing that the burqa can be simply flipped around to be a source of power is just as misguided.

The team at Unicorn Black, the production company behind Burka Avenger
via Burka Avenger FB

So what’s troubling about counter-arguments like these is that they do not shift attention away from the burqa altogether but instead treat it as a locus of liberation. As if Muslim women who don’t cover our heads are proven not to be oppressed. Or if we choose to cover our heads, then clearly we’re free.

As Kawthar Al Qattuta wrote in response to the Qahera vs FEMEN comic, similarly featuring a hijabi superhero, that made its rounds on Tumblr a while ago:

The discourse on plighted Muslim women often focuses on the physical: the forced veiling, domestic violence, segregation, forced marriages and so forth. This focus on the physical masks the inherent bigotry in this rhetoric: the colonialism, the racism, the paternalism, the authoritarianism.

Likewise, when the counter-narratives offered by Muslim women are relegated to the realm of the physical, it contributes to that lack of focus and skirting around the real issues at hand.

Criticism and praise of the Avenger’s burqa are characterised as “feminist,” but I’d argue that they’re far more neo-orientalist. This isn’t as much about the patriarchy as it is about continuing to perceive Muslim women as Other. This is especially true of commentaries coming from the outside, though it is also entirely possible for those within to be guilty of the same. (This is seen, for example, in the Good Muslim/Bad Muslim binary in which you disassociate yourself from “less desirable” parts of your own culture to make yourself more palatable to dominant ones.) Asking whether the burqa is “cool or conformist” completely misses the point – why are we still intent on reading so much into it? Why do we continue to reify the burqa as a symbol of Otherness from which we make reductionist conclusions about actual women’s realities?

Fixating on a Muslim woman’s dress, no matter which side you’re on – none of this is subversive or radical.

Fixating on Muslim women, period – none of this is subversive or radical.

Ainy Jaffri, voice of the Burka Avenger
via Burka Avenger FB

It is necessary to note that there is a gaping hole in both my own analysis and that of most talk about this: what is the Pakistani response to this Pakistani TV show? There are issues in Burka Avenger that go beyond Jiya’s dress, including representations of national culture (the shalwar kameez & dupatta are more common than burqas in the South Asian nation), the rural/city divide, and so on. These critical narratives are not mine to take on, but they are very much worth blocking out the noise about the burqa to listen to.

Now, I’ve saved the best for last. See Jiya in superhero form?

via Burka Avenger

That’s a niqab, not a burqa. (While frequently used interchangeably, burqas are a full-body covering with a mesh screen in front of the eyes too.) Not all headdresses are made equal. Did someone say something about homogenising the Muslim Woman Experience?

Two Steps Forward, One Step Back for Trans Anti-Discrimination Work in Malaysia

In early July, it was reported that a transgender welfare committee, the first of its kind in Malaysia, had been given the green light by representatives from both Barisan Nasional, the federal ruling party, and Pakatan Rakyat, the largest opposition coalition, in northwestern state Penang. But plans for this committee have been cut at the knees as politicians backtracked on earlier shows of support. Instead of a full-fledged committee that would have had implementation and enforcement powers, a bi-partisan caucus under the state assembly will be formed to explore equal access for trans people in healthcare, employment and education, among other areas.

Teh Yee Cheu, the Democratic Action Party (DAP) state assemblyman who has been lobbying for this committee since 2009, attributes the change of heart to a prevailing “conservative mindset” and “lack of political will,” especially given the backlash to the initial announcement. On the other hand, DAP’s Chong Eng, the state Executive Councillor for Youth and Sports, Women, Family and Community Development, and Arts, put it down to “different opinions within the EXCO” and “some misunderstanding.”

Penang State Legislative Assembly
via Penang Monthly

Teh’s original proposal was a bold, hard-won political move. Aside from addressing systemic discrimination, it was also intended to collect data, conduct forums and raise public awareness on related issues in the hopes of dispelling social stigma.

Another first was the appointment of Hazreen Shaik Daud, a 33-year-old former NGO worker and out trans woman, as Teh’s political secretary.

While noting the mixed reception to the news of her appointment and her own initial misgivings, Hazreen expressed optimism about being in a position to address the needs of the Malaysian trans community and other marginalised groups in line with DAP’s slogan, “Ubah” (“Change”). Alongside her work on trans issues, her portfolio includes issues of politics, economy, culture, education, health and human rights.

DAP’s Teh Yee Cheu and Hazreen Shaik Daud
via TransGriot

On a related note, earlier this year activists launched an online education campaign called “I AM YOU: Be a Trans Ally”. The movement was a response to what was seen as aggravated anti-LGBTQ rhetoric in the lead-up to the 2013 General Elections from politicians attempting to garner the conservative vote.

Trans issues are often conflated with issues of sexuality and religion in Malaysia’s state and syariah courts, making legal boundaries unclear. A 1983 fatwa (legal judgment) by the Conference of Rulers prohibits gender-confirming surgery for Muslims, while those deemed to be having sex with someone of the same gender can be prosecuted under syariah laws or the British colonial era law prohibiting sodomy. Only one out of three cases heard by state courts has resulted in a successful application for a legal gender change. Justice for Sisters, a local grassroots advocacy group, lists numerous laws that are used to prosecute trans* people ranging from “drunkenness and disorderly behaviour” to “men impersonating women.”

As Hazreen mentioned in her video interview with KiniTV, trans people face limited employment opportunities as they are assumed to be involved in sex work or find themselves up against the Bathroom Meme. The law does not criminalise discrimination on the basis of gender or sexual identity.

Hazreen Shaik Daud
via TransGriot

Even as the initial exuberance about the prospect of a dedicated state committee working on trans issues has deflated, Teh has reiterated his commitment to “continue the struggle.” He identified a handful of Pakatan Rakyat and Barisan Nasional assemblypersons as having voiced their support for the committee.

In the prolonged pursuit of equal treatment and acceptance, this episode has illustrated that trans* people in Malaysia are still up against massive legal, religious and societal barriers. Nonetheless, the proactive leadership of people like Teh and Hazreen hints at the potential for greater positive change and should be recognised as a noteworthy shift in political tone. The verdict is still out on what real policy change, if any, the current watered-down caucus will be able to implement, but played right, this move could transform the lives of thousands of marginalised individuals and perhaps even kickstart change on a national level.

More Pride, Less Prejudice: 5 More Bitches for the Banknotes

The UK media is full of people talking about rape threats and trolling against female journalists and government ministers – and for once, it’s throwing its weight behind the women affected. After a public outcry, Twitter has agreed to include a button for reporting abuse on every tweet, and a conversation has opened up about why women get threatened just for speaking out online.

Caroline Criado Perez via The Guardian

Its an amazingly far-reaching result for a campaign that started out tiny. Journalist Caroline Criado Perez started a Change petition protesting the fact that after Elizabeth Fry’s portrait was dropped from the £5 note in favour of Winston Churchill’s cigar chugging chops, not one of the six historical figures depicted on British banknotes would be female (if we don’t count the Queen). People from all across the political spectrum complained that there were better things to worry about, with a massive recession and government cuts, but the campaign gathered speed, and it was announced that Jane Austen would appear on the £10 note in 2017. There’s a lot to celebrate, but it feels like the conversation shouldn’t end here.

The people whose faces appear on banknotes at the moment are all scientists, campaigners, people with ideas that changed society for the better. New arrival Churchill might be a brilliantly quotable wartime leader, but he’s not exactly underexposed – everyone’s heard of him, even if they might not know about his history of racist, colonialist prejudices, tendency to stamp down hard on trade unions, and fondness for making misogynist remarks. Putting his face on banknotes is a straightforward, patriotic move, like the wave of pro-royalty feeling after Prince William and Kate’s new baby. It feels like saying “Look at us, we may be in a recession, but we’re a country that wins wars!”

I think Jane Austen is brilliant, even though its a shame the Bank of England has messed up picking the quote that will appear under her picture. But, like Churchill, everyone’s heard of her – she’s such a straightforward, uncontroversial choice. Our banknotes should be a chance to get people talking about unsung heroes. The only condition for appearing on them is that people need to be dead, notable, and British. Here are some women – queer, feminist, or courageous long before either of those terms was invented – whose names ought to be common currency, and on it too.

Aphra Behn (1640-89)

via biography

The Rover is a play that crops up to baffle theatre students every so often. Its great – cross dressing! Duels! Beds that vanish, mid seduction! – but its author is far more interesting. Aphra Behn combined being a playwright with working as a spy (codename: Astrea) overseas for the government. Jane Austen put away her work when visitors came, alerted by a creaking door, but 100 years earlier, Aphra Behn courted scandal as one of the first women to earn a living by her pen. She was also comfortable writing about sexual desire, even when it seemed to be directed towards women. Take her poem “To the fair Clarinda: Who made love to me/ Imagin’d more than woman.” The images are complicated, playing with ideas of gender in a way that reflects and mocks her libertine male contemporaries.

Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-97)

via norton anthology for english lit

She was later overshadowed by her daughter Mary Shelley, who wrote Frankenstein (a great read, but there’s a lot more about the Swiss countryside and a lot less blood ‘n’ gore than you might think), but never by her husband; Mary Wollstonecraft’s proto-feminist principles led her to keep her own name when, after several affairs, she married the radical publisher William Godwin, as well as maintaining her own separate cottage. A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) makes her a foremother of feminist thought, but she was also a war-reporter, translator, single mother, and thinker on social reform. A constant behind her unconventional, scandalous relationships with men was her close relationship with Fanny Blood. She wrote to a friend, “You know not how I love her…I have now given up every expectation and dependence that would interfere with my determination of spending my time with her.” The pair set up a girls’ school together, but when Fanny became ill with tuberculosis, Mary persuaded her to marry a man, so she could escape to the warmer, healthier climate in Portugal. Mary came to join the household, but arrived just as Fanny died in childbirth.

Mary Seacole (1805-81) and Florence Nightingale (1820-1910)

via blackvisions and cnmr

Its a bit surreal putting two Crimean-war era nurses in a bonnetted boxing match for role model status, but apparently that’s how we decide who goes on the educational syllabus in this country. Mary Seacole is Britain’s best-known black historical figure, left out of textbooks in favour of Florence Nightingale; her amazing adventures started being taught to primary school children in recent years, but now reforms look set to remove her from history lessons. Maybe I’m being optimistic, but why should we only celebrate one or the other? Nightingale and Seacole weren’t enemies – Seacole stayed at Nightingale’s for a night, and they were reported to have met often, although we don’t know much more.

Comparing them says so much about the ways that class and race shapes womens’ opportunities. The Crimean War was a freezing, muddy hell hole; not unusual for a war, but it what was unusual was that for the first time, reporters sent extensive dispatches on its horrors to the British Press. Florence Nightingale came in with 38 volunteer nurses and government authorization; Mary Seacole tried to volunteer as a nurse, but was refused. Florence Nightingale had a comprehensive scientific education thanks to her father’s rare, enlightened principles, enabling her to write nursing manuals that were used for hospital reform for years to come, and to use statistical analysis to calculate preventable deaths in the military. Refused employment, Mary Seacole had the resourcefulness to build her own hotel/hospital out of driftwood and packing cases, and was so loved by the men she treated that when she returned to Britain penniless, they got a subscription together for her maintenance.

Annie Besant (1847-1933)

via bbc

Putting Churchill on banknotes just seems like another sign that as a nation we’re forgetting about race and colonialism as problems – he was an anachronism, all for keeping the British Empire together, even as public enthusiasm moved on. Annie Besant was different. She opposed British Imperialism long before the Second World War, campaigning for Irish and Indian independence, and emphasizing the dignity of other cultures. In her early life she was heavily involved in trade union issues like the matchgirls’ strike of 1888, campaigning for womens’ rights, and raising money for Indian women to receive medical educations. Later, she moved to India, becoming president of the India National Congress – the next person elected to the role was Gandhi.

Besant’s ideas got more and more esoteric later in her life. She got heavily into theosophy, a religion/philosophy which has some fascinating (and very complicated) ideas on gender, but also some ideas on race that were later implicated in anti-Jewish feeling in Germany. So she’s not a straightforward heroine. No one is. The only straightforward heroes or heroines are saints, and if we all followed the saints’ examples we’d be dead. There are different kinds of miracles, and it’s too much to expect one historical figure to combine the open lesbianism of the Ladies of LLangollen with the feminist sociological energies of Harriet Martineau and the devotion to helping people of Elizabeth Fry.

That doesn’t mean we should give up, though, and just pick someone who springs easily to mind. Its worth trying to find people who look forward, rather than look back. Who might be complicated, but who in among the contradictions have ideas we can uncomplicatedly get behind.

Also.Also.Also: When Transphobia and Whorephobia Collide and Other Stories We Missed This Week

Hello, new world order! Let’s check out the stories we missed while I was staring at the Tidal Basin. Over and over and over again.

The Times, They Are A-Changin’

+ The Community Safety Act could mean a better NYPD, and a more equitable city.

+ After the Labour MP in the UK was bombarded with rape threats for supporting putting Jane Austen on bank notes, Twitter will be implementing a feature to report abuse.

+ Pat Robertson: “there are men who are in a woman’s body. It’s very rare, but it’s true…or a women that are in men’s bodies…I don’t think there’s any sin associated with that. I don’t condemn somebody for doing that…it’s not for you to decide or to judge.” (Skip to 2:28 below.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWkMFDFMF2A?t=2m28s

+ Leiah Moser is trans*, Jewish, and fucking shit up.

+ Let my people in! To the jurors’ box, that is. Also: a feminist judge sounds amazing while we’re at it. And what about gay ambassadors? Where the fuck are they? Can a girl get a drink in here please.

Serious Business

This photo essay focuses on survivors and not-survivors of corrective rape and the practice’s impact on an entire region.

HILLARY CLINTON MOTHERFUCKING MINISERIES

YOU HEARD RIGHT, MOTHAFUCKAS

In addition to the previously announced six-hour miniseries based on Cleopatra, NBC has ordered a four-hour miniseries based on former first lady Hillary Clinton starring Diane Lane…

Hilary will be written and directed by Frozen River‘s Courtney Hunt and will recount Clinton’s life as a wife, mother, politician and cabinet member from 1998 to the present. The script will begin with Clinton living in the White House as her husband is serving the second of his two terms as president. It will include her likely run for president. Busted Shark’s Sherryl Clark will executive produce alongside James D. Stern (Looper). Greenblatt told reporters following his presentation that the former first lady hadn’t yet heard of the project.

BAM.

This Week In Intersectionality

+ StaceyAnn Chin is a single, lesbian, artist, mom:

I tip my wilted hat to the women who keep a spotless house in the face of a full day of work at the office and more than one small child in the home. I would like to sit at their feet and beg them to teach me the secret of their super human abilities.

And I should pause from my woe-is-the-life-of-the-single-mama-rant to say I am really enjoying being a mom. I need to say it in anticipation of the new-age-positive-thinking-optimists who will say I am not at peace with the process because I am not channeling my inner Zen or tapping into the vast outer energies that balance planet Earth and its surrounding constellations, or those who will critique my frustrations as regret, or sorrow, or back-pedaling on the decision to have a child outside of a partnership. I. AM. ENJOYING. MOTHERHOOD.

I love the snuggling and the singing and the kisses. I love going to the park and watching her master the monkey bars or the big kid slide. I love the silly faces and the games we make up together. I love reading Click Clack Moo and Goodnight Moon. And there is nothing quite like the squeal of delight she lets out upon my return from a short sojourn elsewhere. I love the look of complete adoration in her eyes when we rise in the morning. (And yes, I know that light of adoration will dim as she ages, perhaps because she will begin to see me more clearly?) I love the kid. The kid loves me. We dig each other’s jokes. In these very early days, I get her. She gets me. I wouldn’t trade her for anything. She’s a keeper.

+ When a murder is “transphobic and whorephobic.”

+ bell hooks (FINALLY) speaks out on Trayvon Martin:

White supremacy has not only not changed its direction, it’s intensified as black people and other people of color have gained rights and have proved ourselves to be equal. In many ways the Zimmerman case is really a modern day lynching, it’s about racist white people reinforcing racialized power. The outcome sends a message to the world that global white supremacy is alive and well…

bell hooks: We can’t combat white supremacy unless we can teach people to love justice. You have to love justice more than your allegiance to your race, sexuality and gender. It is about justice. That’s why Dr. King was so vital because he used the transformative power of love as a force for justice.

Orange Is Still The New Black

No but really. Check out this interview with Lea DeLaria if you’re not sold yet.

Or this one with Laverne Cox.

Marry Me!

A majority of Americans (52%) would support a national referendum on gay marriage, which would make everyone’s life a helluva lot easier to be honest. Plus – now that gay spouses have the same ability to support politicians as their straight counterparts and Montgomery, Pennsylvania decided to just go ahead and give out gay marriage licenses without a lift of the state’s gay marriage ban, it’s becoming increasingly clear that if we don’t legalize gay marriage soon the world’s collective head will explode all over my unworn wedding dress. I’m kidding about the dress, though. That shit would be weird.

Queering Herstory

The Library of Congress just got a little gayer. Really.

The Library of Congress has acquired the papers, photographs, films and memorabilia of gay rights pioneer Lilli Vincenz, the nation’s largest library announced Thursday.

Vincenz joined the first gay rights protest in front of the White House in 1965 with group leader Frank Kameny and about 10 others, and she marched in annual July 4th demonstrations in Philadelphia.

Vincenz’s collection includes 10,000 items, the library said. It includes two rare 16-mm films Vincenz made of an early gay rights protest in Philadelphia and the first gay pride parade in New York City in 1970, one year after the Stonewall Riots. Her footage has appeared in other films and documentaries about the history of the gay rights movement.

Fat Shaming Is Nonsense

It’s science!

Having been a reader of fat-acceptance writers like Kate Harding for a long time, I can safely say that there are many people/commenters who are deeply concerned that if we don’t shame and insult fat people for their weight, they won’t be motivated to lose it. This “idea” was just dealt a major blow by researchers from the Florida State University College of Medicine, who that found that shaming fat people about their weight correlates to weight gain, not loss.

House of Homophobic Horrors

+ Russian neo-Nazis are using social media to prey on gay people, then attack them! Clearly Russia’s ban on gay propaganda did wonders for ending anti-gay discrimination in the nation. Maybe once we’re all done watching the Olympics we can worry about these trivial little matters, though. After all, athletics are everything.

+ Montenegro’s first-ever gay pride was interrupted with chants of “kill the gays” bc charming people.

F*ck Yeah Aubrey Plaza

Let’s make fake Daria happen.

UK’s Plan to Block Porn and “Adult Subjects” Doesn’t Bode Well for Gay and Sex Ed Resources

In the most recent episode of Won’t Somebody Think of the Children?, UK Prime Minister David Cameron announced that ISPs will be blocking “legal pornography and other adult subjects” by default because online porn is “corroding childhoods.” The four biggest ISPs have agreed to comply — covering 95% of UK households — and, by 2014, all new and existing customers will need to proactively opt out of porn filters.

Let’s get the easy arguments out of the way. Relying on network-level filtering, which is far less robust than device-based systems, to block content — that’s not how the internet works. Crossing your fingers that those under the age of 18 lack the technical literacy to find workarounds, even as you still rely on them to teach you The Google — that’s not how children work. And scanning the big, bad internet for a few big, bad terms in the hope of catching a few elusive big, bad people — that’s not how online crime works.

“Campaign: How the Mail has led the charge against vile images spread across the internet” by spreading “think of the children” headlines across the internet
via Daily Mail

The internet is not a safe space. This is a problem. But flawed attempts to make it one could be actively harming those for whom safe spaces will be compromised by an indiscriminate default-on porn filter.

In 2002, in response to the U.S. 2000 Child Information Protection Act (CIPA), JAMA published a study titled “Does Pornography-Blocking Software Block Access to Health Information on the Internet?” The work surfaced two key findings: first, the more restrictive the filter settings, the more health information sites — including Planned Parenthood — got disproportionately blocked.

At the least restrictive blocking setting, configured to block only pornography, the products blocked a mean of only 1.4% of health information sites. […] The mean pornography blocking rate was 87%. At moderate settings, the mean blocking rate was 5% for health information and 90% for pornography. At the most restrictive settings, health information blocking increased substantially (24%), but pornography blocking was only slightly higher (91%).

It’s worth keeping in mind that translating those percentages into reality requires considering how the sheer number of porn sites easily overshadows sexual health ones.

via Motherlode / NYTimes

Second and more worryingly, sites to do with sexuality are disproportionately blocked.

However, [at the least restrictive setting] about 10% of health sites found using some search terms related to sexuality (eg, safe sex, condoms) and homosexuality (eg, gay) were blocked.

While the internet and the way we use it have obviously changed a great deal since 2002, it’s not clear that the network-level filtering that’s under discussion would have a more nuanced approach to blocking objectionable content.

The UK already has a form of widespread content filtering in place: most mobile providers switch parental-control filters on by default. The process by which sites are filtered is inconsistent across providers and largely opaque, relying on a broad, self-regulated framework that was last updated in 2009. Open Rights Group, a UK-based digital rights advocacy group, released a study in 2011 in conjunction with the London School of Economics & Political Science noting that these filters were often overzealous.

Firstly, sites are often incorrectly classified as containing objectionable material. Second, phone operators aren’t forthcoming about the details of how their filtering systems work or what kind of content they block. Third, it’s not clear how to report sites that are erroneously blocked. Finally, it’s difficult even for adults to turn the filtering off.

Just earlier this year, sites to do with homosexuality, feminism, and even political satire were blocked by mobile providers as “mature content.” Pink News reported that mobile providers were blocking access to their site and other LGBT interest websites. As Willard Foxton at the Telegraph put it, “This was bad enough when these services were blocking porn […] but now it seems overzealous providers are blocking access to anything a Catholic Bishop might consider for adults only.”

Cameron is still waffling on the details so lots of unanswered questions remain as to what exactly these filters will block. How will these sites be decided, who’s deciding, and who’s regulating the regulators?

It’s virtually a given, however, that sites linked to sexuality and sexual health will be taken down as collateral damage. It remains paralysingly hard for porn-sifting algorithms (and people) to tell “horny am4teur college chicks b@nging” and “How to Have Lesbian Sex for the First Time: NSFW Sunday Special” apart. Sex/uality education and support for LGBTQ teens already leaves a great deal to be desired, and this could potentially restrict access to crucial information and support even more.

via Trusted Reviews

The next phase involves pushing for keyword blocks on search engines like Google and Bing. Given the transnational implications of this, it’s likely to face a lot more pushback from the industry; additionally, Google has repeatedly pointed out that it already actively works against online child pornography.

What receives even less attention than sexual health & sexuality-linked sites is what keyword blocks would mean for abuse survivors looking for support or information online. Child abusers share illegal material over peer-to-peer networks and other less easily located channels, while vulnerable people rely on search engines and online social networks to find spaces where they can make sense of what happened to them or find others to talk to. It’s easy enough for David Cameron to condemn “depraved and illegal search terms,” but for far too many people, those terms describe their actual experiences, and not being able to see their experiences reflected on the internet can increase feelings of isolation.

The move appears to be engineered to garner widespread mainstream support. It’s not an issue of a centre-right Conservative social agenda: Labour not only backs it, but wants “filters on all ISPs and a proper age verification system” among other additional measures. Cameron made his speech against the backdrop of the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) HQ, bundling this measure with others like a ban on porn depicting rape that the End Violence Against Women Coalition is “delighted” about. The Daily Mail sees no hypocrisy in running a victory lap.

Silver lining: could we get the Daily Mail blocked?
via @samradford

Yet these issues – and these are all separate issues, for child abuse is not child “sexualisation” is not rape glorification is not political posturing on who can do more to Save the Innocent – are layered in so many levels of disagreement any “universal” approaches should be immediately deemed deeply suspect. Certainly the problem of objectionable and dangerous sexual content on the internet is real and worth addressing, but it’s not yet clear whether this is the way to go about it.

Dutch Filmmakers Face the First Backlash Against Foreigners from Russia’s Anti-Gay Law

Despite the decriminalization of homosexuality in Russia in 1993, the past few weeks have seen a rush of anti-gay legislation, including the new ban on the adopting of children by any same sex couples. This weekend, four Dutch immigrants became the first people found in contempt of the anti-gay propaganda law, and were arrested. They were released Sunday without being charged.

Cara introduced the specifics of this bill in her article last month, explaining the fines and penalties for citizens who engage in the “dissemination of information aimed at developing in minors non-traditional sexual facilities.” This includes any printed propaganda, use of the media and internet to spread pro-gay messages, speaking about homosexuality in the presence of children and the assembly of LGBT groups, protests or rallies. Monetary fines range from 4,000 rubles for individuals up to 1 million rubles for organizations. Foreigners can face deportation, organization can see temporary closure, and some individuals can serve jail time.

According to a report from BBC, the four Dutch citizens were filming a documentary about gay rights in Murmansk when police burst in during an interview, detained the film crew, and questioned them for several hours. The police later reviewed their footage. One of the documentary participants turned out to be 17 years old, though the Dutch lawyer countered that the participant told the film crew he was 18 before they included them in filiming. One member of the Dutch group, Kris van der Veen, wrote on his twitter account that since their release, no further action has been taken against them. It is now assumed there won’t be a full case brought against them. (Van der Veen is the head of LGBT-Groningen, a group that campaigns for gay rights). Each of the four were fined 3,000 rubles, ($93), and cited for violating their visas which stated they were visiting the area to learn local culture.

As the homophobic legislation in Russia escalates, there seems to be little mainstream news coverage or reaction to these harsh political changes, despite the international attention you would assume Russia would receive as Russia is readying to host the 2014 Winter Olympic games. In a New York Times op/ed piece last weekend, Harvey Fierstein, an actor and playwright, voiced his frustrations about the situation in Russia, calling out the world’s silence and questioning Putin’s political motives. Fierstein concludes that “Mr. Putin’s campaign against lesbian, gay and bisexual people is one of distraction” from other political failings. He also challenges the world leaders to speak out against these practices that are breeding hate and violence.

As mentioned above, at least two new bills regarding LGBT rights have passed since the anti-gay propaganda bill in June. On July 3rd, Putin signed the ban on adoptions by same sex couples, both domestic and foreign, which had been brewing for some time. Single parents who lived in same sex permitting areas are included in this ban. The Huffington Post quoted the Kremlin as saying “the measure is aimed at guaranteeing a harmonious and full upbringing for children in adoptive families.” Just a few days earlier, Putin extended the previous anti-propaganda bill to include foreign tourists. This new provision is especially worrisome in light of the Olympics – and whether any LGBT athletes could be subjected to consequences of this law, which includes up to 15 days of jail time, for speaking publicly about their sexual orientation.

The time is ripe for international pressure to be put on Russia, but any real action is yet to be seen. The International Olympic Community and Human Rights Watch have already released statements vowing to stand by any LGBT athletes, but the protection of just one group isn’t a good meter for change. While stories of questioned foreigners and fears about traveling swirl on smaller news outlets, the internal violence continues without much coverage, and Russia’s silenced LGBT community waits for collective support.

Also.Also.Also: Trans* Women in Paris and Other Stories We Missed This Week

Hey, firecrackers! Let’s take a look at the stories we missed this week while my friends and family trolled my Facebook.

Are You Ready

Is NASCAR ready for a gay driver? Does anyone care?

ready for what

All Around the World, Gay Rights Crumble Just In Time For Me To Write About Them

+ Meanwhile, in Haiti…

Organisers say they are pleased with the turnout on Friday as more than 1,000 people took to the streets here to protest homosexuality and a proposal to legalize gay marriage in Haiti. The protesters carried anti-gay placards and chanted songs in which they threatened to burn down parliament if its members make same-sex marriage legal. A Haitian gay rights group has said it plans to submit a proposal allowing homosexuals to wed, but a coalition of religious groups said it opposed recent laws in other countries supporting gay marriage.

According to sources in Haiti, within the protest against marriage between persons of the same sex, individuals armed with knives (sticks, blocks and other objects) attacked several people.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-u126Q3gHA

+ In Mexico, an openly gay mayor.

+ In Britain, people who watch porn need to ‘fess up. Or else they’ll lose their ability to watch it forever. No but seriously, everyone in Britain may soon have to inform their Internet providers if they want to continue accessing porn.

Keep On Keep On Keep On Journaling Through The Night

“Emotional writing heals physical wounds.”

All In The Family

Kids aren’t impacted by their parents’ sexualities – they’re impacted by their parents, period.

A second study in as many weeks has found that adopted children are not impacted by the sexual orientation of their parents. Instead, what matters is how well parents support each other and how satisfied they are with the division of childcare labor.

Epic Wins

+ Rachel Jeantel will go to the HBCU of her choice, for free.

+ Ohio must legally recognize one of the most deeply moving gay love stories of all time, according to a federal judge.

+ Ex-gay pride was cancelled.

Women Reading Things, Not Reading Things

Why are women deserting newspapers? Does it have to do with the shitty trend pieces written about our lives?

A Republicanism Round-Up

+ House Republicans have thrown in the towel on DOMA.

House Republicans have been using taxpayer funding to foot the $2.3 million dollar billto defend the Defense of Marriage Act in a number of cases…Now that the Court has overturned DOMA, the House is abandoning its defense in the other cases…Thus, the federal government will no longer be spending taxpayer money to defend discrimination against same-sex couples, though the money already spent — which could have actually helped people — is lost forever.

+ Ken Cuccinelli, candidate for Governor in Virginia and man who shares a last name with a really terrible person I knew once, wants to ban oral and anal sex (FOR THE CHILDREN, OF COURSE) and is a straight-up, unabashed, incredibly douchey, homophobic asshole. I assume for those of us who live in Virginia this election is a no-brainer, right.

Trans* Women In 1950’s Paris

You heard me.

Cameroonian LGBT Activist Found Dead In His Home

Eric Ohena Lembembe, gay rights activist, writer, and executive director of the Cameroonian Foundation for AIDS (CAMFAIDS) was found dead this past Monday, July 15th. Lembembe’s friends, who were worried about him after he missed a meeting and then couldn’t be reached by phone for two days, visited his home in Yaoundé, Cameroon. The house was padlocked from the outside, but they could see his body through the window, lying face down on his bed. Police broke down the door and recovered Lembembe’s body. According to one witness, Lembembe’s neck and feet were broken and his face, hands and feet were covered with iron burns. So far, no one has been arrested in conjunction with the crime.

ERIC OHENA LEMEMBE

As a journalist and as the director of CAMFAIDS, Lembembe provided services to people with AIDS and HIV and documented abuses against the gay community, often writing for Erasing 76 Crimes. He is remembered for these accomplishments, his friendliness, his tenacity, and his “David vs. Goliath spirit.” His coworker Neela Ghosal recalls watching him sit across a table from Cameroonian soldiers and police — members of a force that, as Lembembe had recently proven, systematically abuses and discriminates against LGBT people — and get them to listen to him as he argued for equal treatment, even as they dismissed foreign activists making similar pleas. Lembembe was at the forefront of a new push for LGBT rights that has been working to take years of well-meaning but toothless recommendations from the UN and other international organizations and find a way to put them into action in the courts and on the streets. “We do not know who killed Eric, or why,” says Ghosal, but “his friends suspect that in killing him, someone wanted to kill a movement. “

Under Article 347 bis of the Cameroonian penal code, having “sexual relations with a person of the same sex” is punishable by up to five years in prison. According to Human Rights Watch, Cameroon “prosecutes more people for consensual same-sex contact than almost any other country in the world.” Most people charged are convicted based on forced confessions, or despite scant evidence — last year Roger Jean-Claude Mbembe was sentenced to three years in prison based on one text message. Two others were arrested because they were caught drinking Bailey’s, “a woman’s drink.” A recent report found that after being arrested, prisoners are often tortured by police and soldiers. The same report proved that, based on Cameroon’s integration of international treaties into its constitution, Article 347 bis contradicts higher laws. “Every time a judge in Cameroon convicts someone of homosexuality, they are violating the law, pure and simple,” points out human rights lawyer Alice Nkom.

ROGER JEAN-CLAUDE MBEDE AND THE WORDS THAT PUT HIM IN PRISON

Meanwhile, actual crimes against LGBT people and organizations are often ignored entirely. Lembembe’s death is the most recent — and most extreme — of a string of violent homophobic crimes in Cameroon that have gone uninvestigated, unsolved, and unpunished. In the month of June alone, three different gay rights groups had their offices broken into. On June 1st, unidentified thieves stole computers and hard drives from the Douala headquarters of the Central African Human Rights Defenders Network. Ten days later, human rights lawyer Michel Toguè — who defends clients who have been accused of same-sex relations, and has received such frequent and disturbing death threats that he eventually sent his family overseas — was the victim of a similar burglary, and lost confidential information. On June 26th, employees of Cameroon’s oldest LGBT organization, Alternatives-Cameroon, arrived at their office to find most of their furniture, computers, and medical records destroyed by arson. Other lawyers, organizers and activists have also suffered death threats and attacks on their families.

In early July, Lembembe, along with other activists and organizations, condemned Cameroonian law enforcement for their “selective disinterest” in these cases, saying that “There is no doubt — anti-gay thugs are targeting those who support equal rights on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. Unfortunately, a climate of hatred and bigotry in Cameroon, which extends to high levels in government, reassures homophobes that they can get away with these crimes.” Lembembe can’t speak out anymore, but in the wake of his death, others have taken up the fight — the United States released a statement “deploring” the murder and “urg[ing] the Cameroonian authorities to thoroughly and promptly investigate and prosecute those responsible for his death.” UNAIDS and Human Rights Watch have made similar statements. All Out has started a petition aimed towards Cameroonian President Paul Biya, urging him to undertake an “immediate investigation.” It remains to be seen whether anyone will listen this time.

Gay Marriage Victory in the UK: We Win Yet Another Thing!

While bookies around the world are focused on the Royal Baby Bump, a lot of Brits are already celebrating a windfall. With the Queen’s Royal Assent at 3:06pm today, England and Wales brought something equally (if not more) important into the world: same-sex marriage.

The Queen has given Royal Assent to Same Sex Marriage. Aggressive homosexuals, please note. Go forth and propose.

— Chris Bryant (@ChrisBryantMP) July 17, 2013

Same-sex marriage supporters have been waiting for the UK to join the fair side ever since Culture Minister Maria Miller promised a bill promoting marriage equality in 2012. In the past few months The Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill has been trudging along, passing its first reading in January, its second in February and its third in May. In the final stretch, it cleared the House of Lords on Monday, the House of Commons yesterday and the Queen’s desk today, finally making same-sex marriage official in England and Wales!

Even though there’s always reason to worry, Tuesday’s House of Commons awash with pink carnations showed supporters they had nothing to fear. After the amendments passed with little protest, Culture Minister Maria Miller, the bill’s sponsor, applauded Parliament for doing what’s right.

The completion of the passage of the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill through parliament, undefeated in all aspects, is a tremendous achievement. Whilst this legislation may be about marriage, its impact is so much wider. Making marriage available to all couples demonstrates our society’s respect for all individuals regardless of their sexuality. It demonstrates the importance we attach to being able to live freely. It says so much about the society that we are and the society that we want to live in.

Ultimately if two people love each other then they should be able to demonstrate their commitment to each other through marriage. This is a historic moment that will resonate in many people’s lives – and I am proud that we have made it happen.

Culture Minister Maria Miller via Peter McDirmiad

Miller isn’t the only one celebrating Britain’s steps towards a brighter, fairer future. Earlier this week as the bill passed through the House of Lords, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg spoke at a same-sex marriage vigil wearing a pink carnation in solidarity.

Yes, this bill has been surrounded by controversy. Yes, it is an extraordinary step. But I hope, in a very short space of time, everyone will look back and think what on earth was the fuss all about. It should be in my view, entirely unremarkable, and not unusual that people who want to express their love to each other and commemorate their love and celebrate their love – regardless of who they are, regardless of their sexuality, regardless of their gender – should be able to do so on an equal footing. Celebrating love in an equal way across society is what this is all about and I want to thank you for bringing this great change about.

Even though the MPs are the players that made the bill into law, same-sex marriage supporters all over the UK recognize how far we’re coming. Stonewall’s Chief Executive Ben Summerskill thanked all of their volunteers throughout England and Wales for achieving this win before vowing to help their Scottish neighbours.

It’s impossible to express how much joy this historic step will bring to tens of thousands of gay people and their families and friends. The Bill’s progress through Parliament shows that, at last, the majority of politicians in both Houses understand the public’s support for equality – though it’s also reminded us that gay people still have powerful opponents.

It doesn’t bring out the same emotions as a parliamentary version of the national anthem, but the Gay Men’s Chorus stood outside the House of Lords celebrating the win as best they can.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNrDASLPa_s

Even though people are out celebrating now, we’re still a wee bit away from marching hand in hand to city hall. Before people can start calling each other Wifey or Hubs, governmental departments need to get past the red tape by drafting up new forms, training registrars in new procedures and updating the current computer system. A formal timeline of the final steps should be released this fall, so clear your calendar. But soon, possibly as early as summer 2014, the red tape tangles can be traded for wedding bands. And hopefully Scotland will be waiting at the altar too.

Also.Also.Also: This Indie Gay Country Song Went Viral and Other Stories We Missed This Week

I don’t even know where to begin. But here’s the stories we missed this week, probably while I was crying. Or watching Orange is the New Black. One of those things.

#JusticeForTrayvon

From Black Girl Dangerous:

On Saturday, George Zimmerman was acquitted of all charges in the murder of Trayvon Martin. Or, put another way, white supremacy allowed a man to stalk and murder an unarmed black teenager and walk away. If you don’t understand how and why this case was about race, which, I believe, requires only the barest minimum of understanding about the world we live in, then this piece is not for you. I’m not the least bit interested in explaining something so incredibly obvious. If you insist on pretending that none of this is about race, please just excuse yourself from this conversation. You don’t deserve to sit at the grown-ups’ table.

If you’re still reading, I’ll assume you don’t have your head up your ass and that the role of race in this case is clear to you. Great. Now, since we’re all on the same page, my only question is:

Are we mad enough yet?

Carmen’s Video Luncheon

I’ll never be as cool as Brittani, you guys.

+ Karen learned to dance in a year.

+ DO YOU FEEL THE FEMMEGASM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfbSaJWLWRw

+ This “indie gay country song” went viral. I repeat: “indie gay country song.”

Celebrities: They’re Just Like Us! Other Times, They Suck.

This week, Tig Notaro took on Reddit, sh*t got (even more) fucked up on Big Brother, Mazzy Star announced a comeback, and Mary-Louise Parker gave up the Internet.

I don’t know if you can imagine a friend sending you something they thought was funny, that was something mean someone wrote about you and there’s like 50 comments from complete strangers across the world about you — and you can say ‘Oh I let it roll off my back’ and ‘I wouldn’t take it personally’, but you have no idea until it happens to you. It doesn’t feel nice…

You Should Give, Get Involved

+ Platonic Solid: both he and she are gay. their failed relationship was not for lack of love. rather, it was for the simple fact that maintaining a relationship with and being in love with the opposite sex was never a real possibility. they were hiding behind their true identities in the comfort and similarity they offered each other. parker and madison find that they were always “soul mates,” just not in the traditional sense of the word.

+ K&A: this comedy centers around Karly (straight) and Alex (lesbian) best friends since college, whose dysfunctional, co-dependent, drinking and drug-taking relationship impedes them from ever finding someone special in their lives besides each other.

+ Wimust, Wimust, establish gender equity in the arts.

Women dedicate time and energy to achieve individual goals, with enormous personal, social and financial sacrifices and are victims of a system that resists all possible forms of change. They are subject to discriminatory behaviour in selection and appointment procedures and access to cultural institutions, academies and universities, means of production and promotion and broadcast networks in all disciplines.

Talent alone is not sufficient for the artistic quality of a performance or success of a career leaving skills and talents unexploited, damaging artistic dynamism, influence and economic development and depriving the arts of talent and skills.

Regular contact with the public is necessary for recognition, and it is, therefore, essential to increase the presence of works created by women in programming, collections, publishing and consultation.

A Trans* Victory

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is finally taking on trans* cases. And trans* people are winning those cases.

“We applaud the EEOC for conducting such a thorough investigation and interviewing so many witnesses to the anti-transgender harassment,” said Tico Almeida, president of the LGBT organization Freedom to Work. “Coming just a few months after the EEOC issued its historic decision that transgender people are protected by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, the EEOC’s reasonable cause determination in this case is, to our knowledge, the first time in history that the EEOC has investigated allegations of anti-transgender harassment and ruled for the transgender employee. This case shows that the EEOC takes very seriously its role in protecting LGBT Americans’ freedom to work.”

You Are You

“You Are You” is your average, run-of-the-mill camp… for gender non-conforming boys.

LESBIANS.

Turns out “emotional infidelity” is a big problem for ladies who love ladies. And turns out we’re not doing too well in the body image department, either. The key here is to avoid worrying about your feelings and your body by making out with each other a little more, but please don’t wholeheartedly trust anything I say.

Hyperbole and a Half: The Book

It’s all happening.

Sex, Gender, Culture

I find this sub-category title hilarious because I took a class called “Sex, Gender, Culture” once. I also ran into a frat brother outside that class who asked me eagerly, “Wow! You’re signed up for sex culture, too?!”

Now, for some hard-hitting questions about our modern world.

+ Are tampons sexist?

+ Et tu, Google?

Google’s motto is “Don’t Be Evil,” but apparently that doesn’t mean don’t give it money. The tech giant is hosting a fundraiser for Sen. Jim Inhofe, the Oklahoma Republican. Just in case you’re unfamiliar with Inhofe, here are some of his greatest [homophobic] hits.

+ Why is Angie “always the man?”

+ Did anyone wanna go to Russia, anyway?

If a trip to iconic city of Moscow or the edgier St. Petersburg is on your bucket list, an anti-gay law recently passed in Russia may have you thinking again… Russia’s laws permit the government to arrest and detain gay, or pro-gay, foreigners for up to 14 days before they would then be expelled from the country.

QT Corner

You needed this, right? Let’s. Get. Fluffy.

In The Midst of Protests, Will Brazil Finally Outlaw LGBT Discrimination?

Feature image via Associated Press

Brazil has had an interesting past few months. Public dissatisfaction with governmental corruption, high taxes, bad infrastructure, and Rio de Janeiro’s decision to host the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympic Games (both of which which will incur massive costs) has led to the biggest protests the country has seen in decades. Just this past Thursday, tens of thousands of teachers, civil servants, hospital employees, and other unionized workers participated in a nationwide strike for better working conditions and public services, marching for hours and blocking eighty highways and the country’s biggest port. There have been enormous riots, police violence, and a level of participation across demographics that suggests things won’t calm down anytime soon. In the midst of this unrest, one of these groups — LGBT people and their allies — is hoping to have their voices heard.

LGBT PROTESTERS OUTSIDE THE NATIONAL CONGRESS (VIA AGENCIA BRASIL)

This is a timely decision for reasons beyond bandwagon-jumping. Back in March, an Evangelical Christian pastor named Marco Feliciano was elected president of the Brazilian House of Representatives’ Human Rights Committee despite a history of racist and homophobic statements — among other things, Feliciano has described AIDS as a “gay cancer” and called African people “cursed.” Feliciano was appointed by commission, not by public vote, and a poll in Folha de Sao Paulo, the country’s largest newspaper, showed that 84% of Brazilians surveyed want him to step down (some of these 84% took to the streets to underline their point). In late June, Feliciano’s committee passed a bill that “allows psychologists to treat homosexuality as a disorder or pathology,” overturning a 1999 decision by the Federal Psychological Council that banned this kind of treatment. The “Gay Cure” bill was massively protested, and withdrawn after it became clear it would be vetoed, but the fact that it passed in the Human Rights Committee is frightening.

If the legislative halls seem scary, the situation on the streets is even worse. Brazil has more anti-LGBT hate crimes than almost any other country. An official statement released in late June shows that anti-LGBT violence in Brazil has increased 46.6% in the past year — there were 9,982 reported incidents of “psychological violence, physical violence, [or] discrimination,” compared to last year’s 6,809. Many of these incidents are physical attacks: 125 trans* people were murdered in Brazil last year, and a 2011 report by Grupo Gay di Bahia found that gaybashings occur, on average, once every 36 hours. “You can’t look at those numbers and deny that there’s homophobia in this country,” said the National LGBT Council’s Janaina Oliveira. In April, Gustavo Bernardes, the general coordinator of Promotion for LGBT Rights, announced the creation of a national system to “monitor aggressions” and offer “security, legal assistance and psychological help” to victims of homophobic and transphobic violence. But these groups hope to prevent the violence in the first place with a bill of their own.

MEMORIALS FOR VICTIMS OF HATE CRIMES (VIA AGENCIA BRASIL)

PLC 122/06, or the “anti-homophobia bill,” was approved in the House of Representatives in 2006 and has languished in the Brazilian Senate since then, despite initial support from Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff. The legislation would amend existing anti-discrimination laws to specifically include “sexual orientation and gender identity.” These laws, which already apply to “age, race, color, national origin, disability, religion, sex, marital status, political affiliation, pregnancy, and citizenship,” levy significant penalties to employers, educational institutions, business owners, and landlords that use discriminatory practices. The bill also includes clauses specifically protecting the right of LGBT people to “express and manifest affection in public or private places open to all people.” Similar bills have already been passed in many Brazilian states, including Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.

VIA REUTERS

Whether the whole nation will follow suit remains to be seen. Despite the less-than-stellar cultural climate and the increasing presence of Evangelical Christians in the legislature, Brazil has a history of relative political progressiveness when it comes to LGBT issues. LGBT people have been able to serve openly in the military since 1969 (way before it was cool!), although some gay soldiers say the environment there is not supportive. The first ever governmentally sponsored national LGBT conference was held in Brazil in 2008, and the first National Black LGBT conference followed four years later. Changing one’s legal gender assignment has been allowed since 2009, and as of 2007 sex reassignment surgery is free under Brazil’s health care system (although only a very limited subset of people qualifies for either of these provisions, and trans* identification is still classified as a pathology). The country legalized same-sex civil unions at the national level in 2011, and this May a court detemined that civil unions must be recognized as marriages if the couple requests it. The Brazilian Supreme Court ruled unanimously to legalize gay adoption in 2010, and also recently guaranteed gay couples’ legal access to assisted fertilization.

Still, the growing power of the Evangelical lobby puts further progress in jeopardy. Hopefully the collective power of the Brazilian people — who have, besides killing the Gay Cure bill, already passed a law dedicating oil royalties to health and education and convinced President Rousseff to meet with representatives from youth and LGBT groups — will extend to these vital issues as well.