Brynn Tannehill 2016-02-13T01:05:21-05:00 Brynn Tannehill Copyright 2008,, Inc. HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Brynn Tannehill Good old fashioned elbow grease. 사실 테드 크루즈가 트럼프보다 더 무섭다,2016:/theblog//3.9146786 2016-02-03T00:12:30-05:00 2016-02-03T01:13:29-05:00 Brynn Tannehill
그렇지만 나는 트럼프는 테드 크루즈에 비해 아주 조금만 무서울 뿐이다. 크루즈가 아이오와에서 승리를 거둔 지금은 더욱 그렇다.

테드 크루즈는 복음주의 크리스천들을 부추겨 승리하겠다는 욕망을 숨기지 않았다. 그의 아버지 라파엘 크루즈는 열렬한 도미니어니스트다. 도미니어니즘은 성경적 법에 기반한 사법 제도로 보수적 크리스천들이 통치하는 국가를 만들어야 한다는 이념이다. 테드 크루즈 역시 도미니어니스트라는 증거는 많다. "나는 첫째 크리스천이고, 둘째 미국인이다."라는 최근 발언을 봐도 그렇다.

그의 기독교는 신이 모든 인류의 99%를 영원히 고문하는 종교이며, 그게 완벽하게 공정하고 자비롭다고 여기는 종교다. 다른 해석이나 뉘앙스의 여지는 없고, 오직 복종하거나 불타거나 둘 중 하나다. 그게 신의 법칙이며, 이 규칙들을 모두 문자 그대로 따라야 한다.

크루즈의 정치에 대한 접근도 비슷한 철학을 따른다: 나는 옳고, 당신이 내가 말하는 그대로 하지 않으면 당신은 그른 것이며, 당신이 따르지 않으면 나는 당신과 당신이 소중하게 여기는 모든 것을 불태워 없애 버릴 것이다. 2013년의 연방정부 셧다운에 대한 그의 접근이 그랬고, 그가 거의 모든 동료 의원들을 소원하게 만든 것도 그런 식이었다. 심지어 그의 가족도 그와 거리가 멀어 보인다.

하지만 진짜 무서운 부분은 그게 아니다.

ted cruz

마르코 루비오처럼 크루즈는 LGBT 인권을 후퇴시킬 것이다. 그러나 루비오와는 달리, 그는 너무 멀리 가지 말라는 사람들을 차단할 가능성이 훨씬 크다. '묻지도 말하지도 말라'를 보라. 테드 크루즈는 국방부 내의 반대 의견에도 불구하고 그 제도를 부활시킬 거라고 암시한 바 있다. 크루즈는 자신이 지도자들의 말을 들을 거라고 주장하지만, 4성 장군들과 제독들은 전부 대통령이 임명한다는 사실은 언급하지 않았다.

미국의 예외주의가 신이 부여한 것이며, 기독교가 우세한 무력을 통해 퍼질 수 있다(그리고 퍼져야 한다)라고 믿는 도미어니스트 장교들이 운영하는 군대를 상상해 보라. 지옥처럼 무서운 일이다.

하지만 그것조차 제일 무서운 점은 아니다.

ted cruz church

대법원에 안토닌 스칼리아스 같은 사람이 2명만 더 있으면 5-4 투표를 통해 기독교를 국교로 정하는 법을 만들 수 있다. 결혼 평등은 더 이상 없다. LGBT들의 프라이버시 권리도 없어진다. 선례 구속성의 원리를 무시하기로 한 커플을 크루즈가 찾아내면 동성 성인들간의 합의에 의한 관계를 금지하는 법을 다시 만들 수 있다. 신의 법이 모든 것을 다 이긴다고 믿는 인물들만 주위에 두고 있는 크루즈라면 어렵지 않게 해낼 것이다.

인류 최악의 암흑기와 같은 악몽이 여기서 등장한다. 세계2차대전 중 일본계 미국인들의 강제 이주 사건이 합헌이라고 했던 코레마츠 사건 판결에 동의한다는 뜻을 내비친 대법관이 이미 한 명 있다.

그러니 성경의 엄격한 문자 그대로의 해석을 바탕으로 한 기독교 법을 가진 기독교 국가가 LGBT에게 어떤 의미를 가질지 한 번 생각해 보자. 필 로버트슨은 유세에서 테드 크루즈를 소개하며 이렇게 말했다. "우리는 지구에서 그들을 제거해야 한다. 그들을 쫓아내자." 미국 종교 자유 회의에서 케빈 스완슨 스완슨 목사는 동성애는 미국에서 사형으로 처벌 받아야 한다는 자신의 견해를 다시 이야기한 다음, 크루즈가 무대에 등장해 그와 함께 섰다. 스완슨을 비롯해 동성애자에 대한 체계적 처형을 요구하는 다른 복음주의자 지도자들은 크루즈를 지지했다.

테드 크루즈가 성경의 문자 그대로의 해석에 기반한 법제도를 원하고, 관용이 없는 신을 믿는다고 해서 정말로 미국의 게이들을 죽여야 한다고 믿을 리는 없을 거라고 주장할 수도 있다. 그러나 크루즈는 몇 달 전에 자신의 믿음이 바로 그것이라는 큰 단서를 내비쳤다.

기자가 LGBT 이슈에 대한 입장을 묻자 크루즈는 이렇게 대답했다. "당신이 묻고 싶은 건 게이 인권에 대한 다른 질문인 것 같군요. 당신도 알겠지만, ISIS는 동성애자들을 처형해요. 게이 인권에 대해 말하고 싶어요? 이번 주는 ISIS가 퍼져서 게이 인권에 있어 아주 좋지 않은 주였죠..."

이 말은 미국의 크리스천들이 게이들을 건물에서 집어 던지고, 그래도 죽지 않은 사람의 머리를 돌로 찧어 부수기 전까지는 LGBT들은 징징대지 말아야 한다는 걸 암시한다. 크리스천들이 이러지 않는 걸 우리 LGBT들은 감사하게 생각해야 한다는 생각이 여기에 숨어 있다. 공정한 '크리스천' 사법 제도 하에서라면 LGBT는 그런 일을 당해야 마땅하다는 것이다.

자신을 LGBT가 존재하게 허락해주는 것만으로 LGBT에겐 과분한, 선량하고 자비로운 애정이 있는 신의 남자로 정의하는 것은 크루즈의 성격에도 잘 들어맞는다.

지금까지는 그렇다.

ted cruz

선량함과 자비로움의 기준을 이토록 낮게 잡는 것은 무시무시한 일이다. 마치 좋은 부모의 정의를 '18세가 되기 전에 자녀를 냉혹하게 죽이지 않기'로 보는 것과 같다. 더 무서운 것은 도널드 트럼프가 선두를 빼앗기면, 설문 조사에 의하면 트럼프의 표를 크루즈가 거의 다 가져가 경선에서 승리할 것으로 보인다는 점이다. 그러면 힐러리에겐 쉽지 않은 승부가 될 것이다.

내 퀴어 친구들이 여권 갱신을 해두었길 빈다.

허핑턴포스트US의 Ted Cruz Scares Me the Most를 번역, 편집한 것입니다.

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Ted Cruz Scares Me the Most,2016:/theblog//3.9138720 2016-02-02T10:11:28-05:00 2016-02-08T16:00:07-05:00 Brynn Tannehill
And yet, he only scares me a fraction as much as Ted Cruz does. Especially after his win last night in Iowa.

Ted Cruz has made no secret of his desire to win on a surge of Evangelical Christian voting. Indeed, his father (Rafael Cruz) is an ardent Dominionist. Dominionism is an ideology that seeks to implement a nation governed by conservative Christians with a legal system based on biblical law. There is every indication that Ted Cruz is also a dominionist, including his recent statement that, "I'm a Christian first, American second."

His brand of Christianity is one which looks at God as damning 99 percent of all humans to eternal torture, and sees this as completely fair and merciful. There is no room for interpretation or nuance; only obey or burn. Those are the rules of God, and all of them must be taken literally and en toto.

Similarly, Cruz's approach to politics has followed the same philosophy: I'm right, if you don't do exactly as I say you're wrong and l will burn you and everything you hold dear to the ground if you do not comply. It is how he approached the 2013 government shut down, and it is how he has alienated almost every one of his House and Senate colleagues. Even his family looks put off by him.

But this isn't the really terrifying part.

Like Marco Rubio, Cruz would work to set back LGBT rights. Unlike Rubio however, Cruz would be much more likely to blow off people telling him not to go too far. Take "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," for instance. Ted Cruz hinted he would bring it back, even though inside the Pentagon the idea of bringing it back elicits groans. Cruz claims he would listen to his leaders, but neglects to mention that all 4 star generals and admirals are all appointed by the President.

Imagine a military run by dominionist officers who believe American exceptionalism is ordained by God, and that Christianity can (and should) be spread through superior firepower. That's scary as hell.

But this still isn't the scariest thing.

The Supreme Court only needs to add two more Antonin Scalias to allow laws favoring Christianity as a state religion to get through on a 5-4 vote. No more marriage equality. No more right to privacy for LGBT people, either. But say hello to laws banning consensual relations between same sex adults returning, as long as he finds a couple willing to ignore stare decisis. Which shouldn't be too hard, given he has surrounded himself with people who believe God's law trumps everything.

Here's where this turns to a nightmare straight from the darkest days of humanity. Because we already have one Supreme Court justice who has hinted that he agrees with the decision (Korematsu) which allowed the internment of Japanese Americans in WWII.

So let's step back for a moment and consider what a Christian Nation with Christian Laws based on a strict literalist interpretation of the Bible would mean for LGBT people. According to Phil Robertson while introducing Ted Cruz at a rally, "We have to rid the earth of them. Get them out of there." At the National Religious Liberties Conference pastor Kevin Swanson Swanson, reiterated his view that homosexuality should be punished by death in the US just before Cruz joined him on stage. Swanson has endorsed Cruz, along with several other Evangelical leaders calling for the systematic execution of gays.

One might argue that surely Ted Cruz doesn't really believe that gays should be put to death in America, despite his desire for a system of law based on a literal interpretation of the Bible, and belief in a God who shows no leniency. Actually yes, Cruz dropped a big hint several months ago that this is exactly what he believes.

When a reporter questioned Cruz about his stances on LGBT issues, Cruz shot back, "I recognize you want to ask another question about gay rights. Well, you know. ISIS is executing homosexuals. You want to talk about gay rights? This week was a very bad week for gay rights because the expansion of ISIS..."

The implication here is that until Christians in America are throwing gay people off of buildings and crushing the heads of those who survive with rocks, LGBT people need to quit whining. Embedded in this is the notion that LGBT people should be grateful that Christians aren't doing this to us, because it's what we would deserve under a just, "Christian" legal system.

It also fits Cruz's personality to be able define himself as a good, more merciful than we deserve, loving man of God by allowing LGBT people to exist.

For now.

Setting the bar for what is good and merciful this low is terrifying. Sort of like defining being a good parent as "not murdering your children in cold blood before they turn 18." What's even more terrifying is that if Donald Trump loses his lead, polling suggests Cruz picks up almost most of the Trump votes, and win the primaries. It would then be in a dead heat in the general against Hillary.

Hope all my queer friends out there have their passports updated.]]>
David Bowie and My Queer Awakening,2016:/theblog//3.8966322 2016-01-12T22:36:43-05:00 2016-02-02T06:59:01-05:00 Brynn Tannehill
Growing up as a kid in the '80s I first knew of David Bowie as "The Goblin King," in the movie Labyrinth. I loved his costumes, and the fluid, aggressive way he moved. I didn't pursue this much further, though; a Mormon father, being told that being dead was better than gay, and hints of a one way trip to a gulag in the Utah desert were more than sufficient to ensure I quickly buried any hints of queerness in my interests.

Twenty plus years went by. I came out. I transitioned. In the process I ended up one of the only queer people in the exceedingly red, rural part of Ohio I lived in. Being an activist and writer who was immersed in anti-transgender hatred weighed upon me heavily. So did the physical rejection by my partner of 15 years, who no longer felt any attraction to me. My job left me underpaid, undertasked, and unfulfilled.

Most of the time, there didn't seem to be any escape from any of these: being alone, reviled, rejected, and pointless.

Then she came along. This queer, trans super activist in DC who had a passion for some of the same quirky, geeky things I did, and at the same time loved poetry, music, art, and theater. She was a bit younger than me, and her energy was infectious. She also saw something in me that I didn't in myself. In some ways I still don't know what that was, but it woke me up to so many possibilities, thoughts, and ideas. It was also the beginning of a resolve to escape from the things dragging me slowly under.

Perhaps the most critical aspect of this moment in time was unwinding the years of internalized transphobia I needed to unpack and get rid of. So much of this self-loathing was centered on my queerness; in both my gender expression and my sexuality and how both led to my ostracization. And this, this is where David Bowie comes in.



Still, this wasn't the important part.



Bowie, ever the sexual omnivore, also had a transgender muse and fling named Romy Haag in the 70's. He treated references to his sexual past, including being with a transgender woman, as little more important than a particularly good dessert eaten 20 years ago. The message in this struck home: being attracted to other queer people isn't something shameful.

It just is. Enjoy what you find beautiful, and keep your bucket of fucks to give empty.

I came away with so many things from both the relationship, and Bowie. Queer is beautiful. Being attracted to, and loving, other queer people is amazing. If you're going to fuck with gender, start by tearing up all the rules. You're never too old to reinvent yourself. Reinvent yourself constantly, and you'll always be ahead of the curve. Be fearless. Be different. What you do today can inspire queer people 40 years from now.

We split up almost a year ago, but still spend time together and remain close. When I saw that David Bowie had died, I tried to hold back tears, and messaged her. "David Bowie's death has really saddened me more than I could have expected. Thank you for sharing your love of his music, and making queer beautiful, with me."

She replied with one word.

The End of the Desistance Myth,2016:/theblog//3.8903690 2016-01-01T16:19:03-05:00 2016-02-02T06:59:01-05:00 Brynn Tannehill
The problem is that the desistance narrative is built upon bad statistics, bad science, homophobia and transphobia.

For starters, the most cited study (Steensma) which alleges a 84 percent desistance rate, did not actually differentiate between children with consistent, persistent and insistent gender dysphoria, kids who socially transitioned, and kids who just acted more masculine or feminine than their birth sex and culture allowed for. In other words, it treated gender non-conformance the same as gender dysphoria. Worse, the study could not locate 45.3 percent of the children for follow up, and made the assumption that all of them were desisters. Indeed, other studies used to support this also suffered from similar methodological flaws.

As a result, the 84 percent desistance figure is meaningless, since both the numerator and denominator are unknown, because you have no idea how many of the kids ended up transitioning (numerator), and no idea how many of them were actually gender dysphoric to begin with (denominator). When Dr. Steensma went back in 2013 and looked at the intensity of dysphoria these children felt as a factor in persistence, it turned out that it was actually a very good predictor of which children would transition.

In other words, the children who actually met the clinical guidelines for gender dysphoria as children generally ended up as transgender adults. Further research has shown that children who meet the clinical guidelines for gender dysphoria are as consistent in their gender identity as the general population.

For the past decade, the biggest promoter of the desistance myth was Dr. Kenneth Zucker at the Center for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) in Toronto. He never missed an opportunity to speak to anti-LGBT organizations and news outlets, or to tout himself as the world's top expert in transgender children. He denied practicing reparative therapy, despite a 2003 report in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry which called his techniques "something disturbingly close to reparative therapy for homosexuals."

Twenty years ago, though, Zucker was also pushing hard for reparative therapy of potentially gay children who were too effeminate, in order to prevent them from growing up to be gay. In 1990, Zucker wrote:


He felt that this was for the best, because, "a homosexual lifestyle in a basically unaccepting culture simply creates unnecessary social difficulties." In other words, force children to change, rather than working to change a homophobic culture. Along the way, Dr. Zucker became the darling of hate groups and their media outlets, such as Focus on the Family, NARTH, CourageC, Alliance Defending Freedom, Life Site News, American Family Association, Liberty Counsel, Family Research Council, Americans for Truth About Homosexuality (AFTAH), and Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays (PFOX).

In effect, because of his position, Dr. Kenneth Zucker was the last "respectable" patron of reparative therapy. He took the model for "fixing" gay kids, slapped a new label on it, and sold it as a way to fix gender non-conforming children. When the transgender activists tried to bring attention to these abuses, Dr. Zucker attempted to silence them with threats of lawsuits.

That is, until December 2015, when an independent investigation led to Dr. Zucker's firing and his clinic being closed. The investigation results were highly damning, finding:

• The methods being used were 30 years out of date

• The clinic assumed that all gender variant children need to be clinically "fixed" (i.e. they used coercive behavior modification on queer kids to make them act straight)

• Children were pressured into being photographed without clothing

• Dr. Zucker verbally abused children, calling one a "hairy little vermin"

• The clinic emphasized tests, treatment, methods with no scientific basis in evidence based medicine

• CAMH staff asked pre-pubescent children questions that were highly sexual in nature

• Former patients, parents, and therapists of former patients described the treatment as "disturbing" and "harmful"

• CAMH hid affirming community and medical resources from patients

• Dr. Zucker regarded being cisgender, heterosexual, and gender conforming as the "best" outcome

• Dr. Zucker and his team could not conclusively demonstrate that what they were doing was not reparative therapy

In a 2014 German study, 13 experts in treatment for gender identity were asked if CAMH's methods were ethical. 11 said no. The two who said yes were Dr. Zucker and another CAMH staffer.

But, the most outrageous piece of information coming out of CAMH was Dr. Zucker's claims that gender dysphoria desisted in 80 percent of cases. However, when investigators reviewed the files of children admitted to CAHM, 72 percent of them never met the clinical criteria for juvenile gender dysphoria in the first place.

In short, 90 percent of the kids Dr. Zucker claimed to "cure" were never transgender in the first place. He built his reputation convincing homophobic and transphobic parents that he could fix their kids. When someone actually got around to listening to the transgender community and pulled back the curtain, they found that the 80 percent desistance narrative was a fabrication of an attention seeking, creepy, reparative therapy promoting, snake-oil salesman.

Despite this, anti-transgender concern trolls came out in force defending Dr. Zucker. They couldn't actually refute any of the findings of the investigation, so instead they played the concern troll card and falsely claimed that non-transgender children will be coerced into medically transitioning if therapists allow children to explore their gender expression and identity.

This is a complete misrepresentation of what affirming therapy actually is. Dr. Colt Keo-Meier, the lead author of Division 44 (LGBT issues) of the American Psychological Association's guidance for treating transgender children, refutes this fear-mongering claim:


Dr. Keo-Meier is supported by a wave of new research showing that affirming therapy does not result in the parade of horribles alleged by the concern trolls. Gender variant youth know who they are just as much as the general population. Transgender youth who are receive affirming care have better health outcomes. Transgender youth on puberty delaying medication showed no health effects, and mental health outcomes as good as their cisgender peers.

The desistance myth was promoted by reparative therapists, concern trolls and charlatans, while being no better than a percentage pulled out of a hat to begin with. It's time for the 80 percent desistance figure to be relegated to the same junk science bin as the utterly discredited link between vaccines and autism.

And maybe people should start listening to the transgender community when we say something is going horribly, horribly wrong inside medical institutions with power over us.]]>
An Open Letter to Caitlyn Jenner,2015:/theblog//3.8808702 2015-12-14T23:26:14-05:00 2016-02-02T06:59:01-05:00 Brynn Tannehill
Transition is intensely personal. It's also awkward in a figuring-stuff-out-that-you-should-have-when-you-were-16 kind of way. I've watched your coming out process mostly because other people, including my Mom, have asked me too. I didn't have a great deal of desire to watch on my own; it felt like an invasion of your privacy. I also knew there would likely be stumbles along the way that would be remarkably painful for you, and sometimes damaging to the transgender community.

It is almost always this way for people who are very visible, and transition publicly. Chaz Bono can attest to this. In a way, I feel somewhat privileged in comparison. When I transitioned, it was in relative anonymity. When I started writing, first it was just a blog meant for myself than no one really read. Then, I wrote for a few smaller publications. Along the way, I joined advocacy organizations, went to conferences, and started a crash course in learning about queer politics.

Even after a year of immersion, it wasn't enough.

When I look back at some of the things I wrote for the Huffington Post at the beginning, I can't help but wonder; what the hell was I thinking? But my mistakes, my gaffes, my learning process were hidden by my obscurity. You don't have that luxury, however.

Watching from afar, there are some things I see a bit too clearly, because I see parts of myself as I was six months into my transition. I was quick to judge, and quick to buy into the idea of the gender binary. I tended to, and still fight not to, see things from my perspective of someone who had the cash reserves to see a transition through.

In your apology, you acknowledged that most people don't have the money to do this, and many choose not to conform to some binary standard quite intentionally. However, what troubled me the most was this was the second time you have expressed a belief that people have bad outcomes in life through some fault of their own, rather than institutionalized prejudice, discrimination and oppression.

Before implying in your Time interview that transgender people who fall outside the binary are to blame for being treated poorly by society, you talked about how transgender people who are unemployed or poor, "can make more not working with social programs than they actually can with an entry-level job?" These quotes remind me of something I once read: "We only have just enough empathy to accept ourselves."

You're coming to accept yourself. But before you can be a spokesperson for the community, you need to learn to accept and empathize with the community at large. Unfortunately, the path you are traveling will make learning that empathy, and gaining that cultural knowledge so much harder and lengthier.

Which is why, with all the love and respect I have for you as a sister, I believe you should take a step backwards. Or at least sideways. What you're doing doesn't seem to be working.

You won't learn what being queer is really like for most transgender Americans being in spaces where queer people are already de rigueur. You learn so much more sitting in the back of the room kibitzing with the field organizers and wonks, than headlining the event.

You won't be able to understand where most queer people are coming from until you understand our absolute dread of conservative, republican politicians. Three of the four top republican Presidential candidates have already vilified us, and promised to roll back protections for transgender Americans. Our lives are being put at daily risk as they label us perverts, abominations, predators and rapists. As bad as things are for transgender people, they could get much, much, worse. Your support of the people who would do these things make it hard for us to trust you.

You're worried about what the paparazzi will think if you don't always look your best. Don't. Take your bucket of ****s to give, empty it out, and wear a t-shirt, jeans, and a pair of sneakers like the rest of us. We all want to look our best at first. Then we realize we still have to haul three bored, hungry, and uncooperative kids through the grocery store, and those heels aren't helping the process.

So here's my advice. Take a sabbatical to go experience the things necessary to understand the community.

Go do a year in a gender studies graduate program. Read radical queer and feminist authors like Imogen Binnie, Julia Serano, Susan Stryker, and Leslie Feinberg. Learn the troubling history of the relationship between transgender people and the medical community. Talk with the civil rights lawyers like Jillian Weiss and Chase Strangio who are re-writing how the law sees us, one case at a time. Geek out with policy wonks and analysts like Harper Jean Tobin who have been so successful at making it easier for transgender people to navigate the government bureaucracy. Participate in direct action with other activists like Bamby Salcedo.

Research areas of interest to you. Write about them, and share the results only with your closest confidants who will only tell you the unvarnished truth.

Go places where life for transgender people is hard. Leave the cameras and entourage behind. Understand that in middle-America, you can literally be the only trans person for an hour in any direction. Seek those places where for transgender people there are, in Thomas Hobbes words, "no arts, no letters, no society, and which is worst of all, continual fear and danger of violent death, and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short."

Ask. Listen. And understand why it is difficult to impossible for so many queer people to escape this. Talk with queer youth. Not with people watching and video rolling, but at some mid-western LGBT center where you'll hear about having parents who aren't supportive, and kids biding their time until they can leave home and define themselves. Learn that as fast as people think times are changing, people under the age of 25 are rapidly re-defining gender.

And do all of these as a student. Not the leader. You must first be a small part of a movement before you can get in front of it.

I want to see you find yourself. I want to see you find the place where you fit within the community. I am concerned about where you are now.

But I am even more interested in who you will grow into.

Very Respectfully,

Brynn Tannehill

Also on The Huffington Post:
Deciding Who We Are,2015:/theblog//3.8738268 2015-12-07T08:09:48-05:00 2016-02-02T06:59:01-05:00 Brynn Tannehill
Who are we as a nation? Who are we as a people? What are our values? Each of the current issues says something about us. And it's not good.

Fear is guiding our moral compass, and deciding what values are most important to us. As a result of these fears, we are valuing things which are objectively actively harmful to people, and U.S. national interests. The discussion over gun control, discrimination against LGBT people, and Syrian refugees are all examples of this. Previous examples of fear based values can be seen in US history, whether the Red Scare, the Japanese Internment, opposition to desegregation, or the Lavender Scare.

It is also worth noting that each of these is now regarded as a dark moment in our past.

Many of the things we ascribe great value to would be senseless anathema to an outside observer. When we look at other cultures with traditions that are actively harmful and have no real benefit, like female genital mutilation, we cluck our tongues, call them barbarians, and go about our lives certain of our moral superiority.

Consider, though, how our devotion to gun culture looks to outsiders. There primary effect of having made guns readily available is that most people who commit suicide do so with a gun, and 64 percent of gun deaths in 2012 were suicides. The number of gun related homicides in the U.S. is higher than any other Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) country except for Mexico, where swathes of the country are controlled by competing, violent drug cartels. The supposed benefits of guns are not justified by statistics: guns did not prevent our current political oligarchy, and people are 143 times more likely to kill themselves with their gun than an intruder in an act of self-defense.

But we, as a culture, place the relative worthlessness of the ability to easily obtain guns over the value of people's lives.

Similarly, many among us are trying to embrace discrimination against LGBT people as a cherished and enshrined value. While most conservatives say that of course discrimination is wrong, and that no one should be discriminated against for being lesbian or gay, the right to discriminate is far more important than the actual people affected by the discrimination. Discrimination clearly has an adverse impact on a society, and the freedom to do so has no intrinsic benefit.

Behind it all is a Fox News-driven fear that Christianity is under assault, and that transgender people are a threat to life and liberty, women and children. People have been convinced that the ability to discriminate against LGBT people is central to the practice of their religion, and it is in danger of being taken away.

The fear-mongers hold up discrimination as fundamental a right. Some even cite discrimination as a matter of virtue and freedom of religion. There is a (false) ongoing narrative that the real discrimination going on in our culture is against Christians. They argue that people of faith need more legal protection against discrimination on the basis of religion. This has led to bills in the House of Representatives which would allow both religious organizations and for-profit companies to continue to take government money while discriminating against LGBT people.

Discrimination is such a fundamental right in our culture however, that it seems to somehow supersede what the constitution says about the government not discriminating on the basis of religion. The discussion about Syrian refugees has lain bare how little actual respect we have for religions other than Christianity.

Let's be clear; ISIS has created the worst humanitarian disaster of the 21st century. People are fleeing the repression, brutality, rape, and genocide perpetuated by the Islamic State, and returning is likely to be a death sentence. Even if they could go back without fear of ISIS, the refugees' cities lie in ruins and their infrastructure is devastated. However, we as a country have responded with our new, most cherished freedom: the right to discriminate.

Conservatives have made it clear this is about preventing Muslims from entering the United States. Senator and Presidential candidate Ted Cruz proposed only giving refugee status to Christian Syrians, because, "There is no meaningful risk of Christians committing acts of terror." Two weeks later Robert Dear, a Christian, walked into a Planned Parenthood in Colorado Springs and shot 12 people, killing three.

New Jersey Governor (and also a candidate for President) Chris Christie abandoned any pretense that has anything to do with national security, though, when he stated, "I don't think orphans under... should be admitted into the United States at this point."

Opposition to taking in Syrian refugees might be understandable if the top experts on the subject were saying it was a bad idea. However, when non-partisan think tanks have looked at the issue, they have determined that the historical threat is low, it can be mitigated, and that taking in refugees is vital to the overall effort against ISIS. Even the libertarian, conservative-leaning Cato Institute regards the risks of Syrian refugees as low.

Sadly, the freedom to discriminate based on irrational biases and fears during a time of war are nothing new. It drove the decision to turn away 908 European Jewish refugees on board the M.S. St. Louis in 1938. We punished an entire class of people out of the unfounded fear that there MIGHT be some who sympathized with the enemy when we interned 110,000 Americans of Japanese descent living on the Pacific Coast in 1942.

Both are a national disgrace today.

The balancing act between freedom and a livable society is not an all or nothing proposition between complete chaos and authoritarianism. We accept some limitations over our rights to own and operate weapons already (e.g. fully-automatic weapons), but clearly these are insufficient to prevent the U.S. suffering from a rash of suicide and violence. We accept laws that circumscribe discrimination on the basis of race, religion, and other characteristics, but hold the freedom to discriminate for religious reasons as a sacred virtue, no matter what the consequences are.

Our problem now is that we are holding "freedoms" with no tangible benefit, and clearly defined harms, above all others. There is no logical, rational, or humanistic justification for them. Just fear and willful ignorance.

So who are we? More importantly, who will we choose to be as a nation? One governed by fear? One willing to accept unspeakable violence as the price of something with no real value? One willing to enshrine religious based discrimination as a lawful virtue? One where Muslims need not apply?

Or are we trying to become a society everyone would want to live in.]]>
Debunking Bathroom Myths,2015:/theblog//3.8670438 2015-11-28T09:11:38-05:00 2016-02-02T06:59:01-05:00 Brynn Tannehill
NDOs don't make Illegal Behavior Legal

It is illegal, regardless of whether an NDO is in place, to enter a bathroom to harm or harass people. When sexual predators do commit sexual assault in bathrooms, they don't need to pretend to be transgender and exploit NDOs to do so. People commit also acts of voyeurism with our without NDOs in place, and don't need to pretend to be transgender to do so either.

Police and Women's Sexual Violence Advocates say NDOs do not Increase Risk

Experts on crime, like the police, state over and over again that NDOs do not result in an increase in sexual assault or rape. Spokesmen for police departments in Iowa, Hawaii, Colorado, Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Texas have all gone on record stating that NDOs do not result in an increase in the number of reported rapes or sexual assaults in their jurisdictions. In fact, 17 states and 200 cities have such NDOs in place, and have not had an increase in sexual assault.

Similarly, experts who advocate for sexual assault victims in these states with gender identity inclusive NDOs state the same thing: NDOs which include gender identity do not result in an increase in the number of reported sexual assaults.

The Actual Numbers Make it Clear why Anecdotes are just Anecdotes

When looking at this statistically, it is pretty easy to understand why this is true statistically. Over the 35 year history of NDOs protecting transgender people all over the world, only one case of a person abusing an NDO and committing sexual assault (in Canada) has ever been found, even by those most interested in demonizing transgender people.

Think about that for a moment.

Every NDO, every person, every bathroom, every day, every trip to the loo, for 35 years, and it's happened once in the entire world.

For sake of context, the FBI reports that over 84,000 rapes were reported in 2014 alone, none of which exploited gender identity inclusive NDOs to commit sexual assault. To put the relative risk of people misusing NDOs in perspective another way statistically, five Americans have been shot by dogs in the past five years. Similarly, 450 people per year in the US are killed by falling out of bed.

No Research Suggests NDOs are Part of the Problem of Sexual Assault

Rape culture in the US is a tremendous problem that needs to be addressed with serious proposals. Peer-reviewed research and literature has looked at how to reduce rape for decades. Some new methods at US universities are showing success. None of the literature or proposals mentions barring transgender people from bathrooms, or eliminating gender identity inclusive NDOs, as a way to bring down the number of sexual assaults in the United States.

Panic over Trans People in Bathrooms Hurts Non-Transgender (Cisgender) People Too

The counter argument that "we can't take the risk" is disingenuous, and ignores the actual consequences of bathroom policing transgender and gender non-conforming individuals. Recently, a cisgender (non-transgender) woman whose gender expression did not match societal standards was violently and humiliatingly thrown out of a restaurant in Detroit for using the women's bathroom. She is currently suing the establishment. A similar incident happened in New York.

Treating All Transgender People as Predators has Dire Consequences

The demonization of transgender people has consequences as well. When visibly transgender people are constantly regarded as sexual predators and deviants, it increases the risk of suicide attempts. It also invites violence against transgender people, like the savage beating of Missy Polis in 2011 as she left a women's bathroom at McDonalds. 2015 has also seen anti-transgender violence dramatically increase to record levels.

For transgender students, the consequences of having nowhere safe to go can be life threating. A trans-masculine student in Michigan held it so long that he was hospitalized with a life threatening kidney infection after he was banned from using the boy's restroom, and bullied constantly for using the girls or staff facility. (Seriously, would you want to be the kid that the entire staff knows rendered their bathroom uninhabitable after taco Tuesday?) This isn't simply anecdotal: survey data on transgender students shows that most face bullying and harassment, and over 1/3rd report being physically assaulted.


Perhaps the saddest irony in all of this is that transgender women who are undergoing medical transition are generally either taking medications, or have had had surgery, which reduces their testosterone to near zero levels. Clinically speaking, people in this category are one of the lowest risk groups committing sex crimes, and also at the highest risk of being victims.

Gender Neutral / Single Occupant Facilities are not a Complete Solution

Single use gender neutral and family bathrooms are part of the solution, but most existing businesses and government offices will be resistant to putting in another ne bathroom based on cost and space. Washington DC has a law where all single use facilities are now designated as gender neutral, but this is only a partial solution. As many transgender people and parents can tell you, finding such a facility when you (or your child) has to go NOW can be very difficult. You can test this yourself by trying to only use gender neutral facilities for a week.

Transgender Men Have Been Left out of the Conversation

This also raises the question of transgender men. Many transgender men look like this:


If a state were to pass a law that required people to use bathrooms in accordance with their sex assigned at birth, they would end up with lots of muscle-y, bearded transgender guys using women's rooms. Which would be really uncomfortable for everyone involved, obviously. If a law were to only target transgender women, however, that would almost certainly fail upon legal challenge.

Solving an Imaginary Problem by Punishing the Innocent is Unacceptable

The upshot of all this is that fear mongering and legislation against transgender people using bathrooms has zero actual benefit, and many clearly understood consequences that affect both transgender and cisgender people. It's essentially dealing with a non-existent threat by punishing an innocent group of people. Sort of like trying to prevent 5 year old Syrian orphans from conducting terrorist attacks in the US by beating up Sikhs.]]>
The Truth About Transgender Suicide,2015:/theblog//3.8564834 2015-11-14T16:05:27-05:00 2016-02-02T06:59:01-05:00 Brynn Tannehill transgender awareness week I wanted to write about something that the transgender community and its allies are often afraid to discuss. Those who want to drive transgender people into the closet, legislate against us, and stigmatize us, talk about all the time in order further marginalize us. It is literally a matter of life and death.

It is suicide.

People know that transgender people are at a higher risk of suicide, but why this risk is higher is often not understood by the public, or misused by people who wish us further harm. The statistic that 40% of transgender people have attempted suicide is used all the time to justify all sorts of things that have absolutely zero basis in science.

Why transgender people are at risk is something that has actually been studied in great detail by psychologists and sociologists. They have found many of the same factors increase risk across multiple peer reviewed studies.

Rejection by friends and family increases suicide risk

Transgender people who are rejected by their families or lack social support are much more likely to both consider suicide, and to attempt it. Conversely, those with strong support were 82% less likely to attempt suicide than those without support, according to one recent study. Another study showed that transgender youth whose parents reject their gender identity are 13 times more likely to attempt suicide than transgender youth who are supported by their parents.

Discrimination increases suicide risk

Transgender people in states without LGBT legal protections are at higher risk of suicide. Other studies have found that transgender people who have been discriminated against are at a higher risk of suicide. What makes this worse is that discrimination against transgender people in health care, employment, accommodations, and housing is very common. Even in places with legal protections for transgender people, like Washington D.C., cultural bias and discrimination remains.

Physical abuse increases suicide risk

Transgender people who have been physically or sexually abused because they are transgender are at a higher risk of suicide. As the number of abusive incidents increases, the more likely the person is to have attempted suicide. The amount of abuse is also associated with the number of time suicide has been attempted. Again, studies on how often transgender people are assaulted show shockingly high levels of violence.

Being seen as transgender or gender non-conforming increases suicide risk

People who are seen as transgender or gender non-conforming are more likely to have attempted suicide. Also, people who have had access to surgery which allows them to "pass," such as facial feminization surgery, report qualities of life not significantly different from the general population. This is perhaps the most damning study, since it strongly suggests that when transgender people are treated the same as cisgender (non-transgender) people, the risk of suicide becomes no different than for anyone else.

Internalized transphobia increases suicide risk

Internalized transphobia is when a transgender individual applies negative messages about transgender people in general to themselves. It's not hard to find such messages in our culture, especially since a multi-million dollar smear campaign in Houston successfully convinced an uninformed populace that transgender people should be treated like rapists and pedophiles. When transgender people start applying such messages to themselves, the suicide attempt rate skyrockets.

Intersecting minority identities increases suicide risk

Multiple studies have found that transgender people of color are at higher risk of suicide than white transgender people. This is a result of the combined effects of racial and gender identity discrimination.

Notice a pattern here? None of these risks for suicide are about being transgender. They're about what is being done to transgender people. And therein lies the rub.

There's nothing inherently wrong with being transgender .

There is something horribly, horribly wrong with the way we as a culture treat transgender people.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has addressed the issue of suicide in LGBT populations, and reached the same conclusions on the actual causes of suicide in the transgender community:

"Suicidal behaviors in LGBT populations appear to be related to "minority stress", which stems from the cultural and social prejudice attached to minority sexual orientation and gender identity. This stress includes individual experiences of prejudice or discrimination, such as family rejection, harassment, bullying, violence, and victimization. Increasingly recognized as an aspect of minority stress is "institutional discrimination" resulting from laws and public policies that create inequities or omit LGBT people from benefits and protections afforded others. Individual and institutional discrimination have been found to be associated with social isolation, low self-esteem, negative sexual/gender identity, and depression, anxiety, and other mental disorders. These negative outcomes, rather than minority sexual orientation or gender identity per se, appear to be the key risk factors for LGBT suicidal ideation and behavior."

This doesn't change the fact that people who push for discrimination against transgender misuse studies, and use "experts" who are proponents of reparative therapy for all LGBT people, and haven't seen a transgender patient in 35 years. Their so-called logic is that if people weren't transgender and didn't transition, they wouldn't commit suicide. This is the intellectual equivalent of suggesting we should prevent rape by making women wear burqas, chastity belts, and never letting them leave the house.

Their pray-away-the-trans "solutions" to bringing down the suicide rate in the transgender community are almost a guarantee of more suicides. Studies show religious counseling increases the suicide rate in LGB people. Reparative therapy has never been demonstrated to be successful on transgender people, isn't approved by any psychological organization, has no guidelines on how to conduct it, and no standard metrics of success.

In other words, any attempt to suggest that the solution to the problem of suicide in the transgender community is to stop being transgender is nothing more than chaff. These individuals are more interested in enforcing their brand of Biblical morality on society than the actual well-being of transgender people.

They're hoping that no one will read this article. They're hoping that no one will think the problem through. What happens when you rape, beat, fire, evict, reject, isolate, demonize, and humiliate a class people on a daily basis? What happens when all of this is done by people in the name of God? Would you expect a group of people experiencing this to thrive?

Or would you expect 40% of them to try to find escape in oblivion?

Leelah was right.

If we want to end the scourge of suicide, it's time we stop trying to fix transgender people.

It's time to fix society.

(H/t to Sebastian Barr for his excellent literature review and blog.)]]>
The Trans Movement Needs a New, Science Based Strategy,2015:/theblog//3.8468062 2015-11-03T20:52:22-05:00 2016-02-02T06:59:01-05:00 Brynn Tannehill

Fighting to preserve HERO was expensive. Proponents spent $3 million dollars, five times as much as their anti-LGBT opponents. Similarly, the campaign to pass a ballot measure similar to HERO in Anchorage in 2012 spent four times as much as the anti-LGBT opponents, and lost exactly the same way.

When opponents frame legal protections for transgender people as a choice between a group strangers (who are suspected of being perverts anyway) and the safety your wives and daughters, transgender people will lose every time. So far, anti-LGBT forces have been far more successful at pushing their narrative.
I don't foresee this changing anytime soon.

One has to ask, how many homeless LGBT youth could those $3 million dollars have given shelter to in Houston? What could it have done in terms of community health care? Or educating doctors in Texas on transgender health issues? Or any number of things? Most importantly, though, how do we win on transgender issues going forward if traditional organizing techniques don't work?

With science, applied like scalpel.

Convincing large numbers of people driven by fear and religious beliefs simply will not happen. And 99 times out of 100, these aren't the people who matter. The people who matter are policy-makers who have the ability to change the regulations which make life difficult for transgender people on a day to day basis.

Bureaucrats, administrators, judges, HR benefits, directors, school superintendents, police chiefs: these are the kinds of people who need to be courted, convinced, and motivated to action.

Time and time again over the past seven years we have seen gains for transgender people have come from convincing individuals in positions of authority to make simple policy based changes. Passports, Medicare coverage of transgender health, driver's license gender marker changes without surgery, inclusion of gender identity protections and health care in the private sector: all of these were accomplished with smart and surgical approaches.

Similarly, when we win in court, it is because we have made better arguments in front of someone who is supposed to be a neutral arbiter. Judges are not supposed to be swayed by emotion, fear, or religious beliefs. Their job is to interpret the law, and the law is often decided based on scientific evidence.

We make progress when the courts and policy makers agree with the scientific evidence that holds gender identity is innate (it seems to be, with over 100 studies in support), it is immutable (there's no credible evidence suggesting gender identity can be changed), and that medical care for transgender people meets both the legal and medical definitions of "medically necessary."

For the most part, the people making these decisions start knowing very little about transgender issues, and aren't personally invested in the material. Just as importantly, there's very little blow back when someone issues a nuanced piece of case law, or a policy change is announced in a state insurance regulatory bulletin. In short, the individuals here are able to do the right thing, without fear.

These are the people we as a movement should be targeting. Trying to convince the general public is an (expensive) fool's errand.

This is why LGB people won the marriage fight: not because they won at the ballot box or in the legislatures, but because they had better evidence on their side from the scientific and legal community: including sociologists, psychologists, and doctors. The opposition's attempt to counter science with bad science failed miserably. When the Regnerus study had its day in court, the judge determined the anti-gay study was, "entirely unbelievable and not worthy of serious consideration."

Despite the lessons of winning marriage in the courts, state and national organizations seem hell-bent on doing expensive and futile campaigns to shift opinions that cannot be shifted right now. The three million dollars in Houston could have been used to fund studies that would counter right wing talking points about transgender people, and continue to build the consensus of people who are experts in the field. Alternately that money could have been used to hire a transgender policy experts and advocates dedicated to working transgender issues full time in half the states in the US.

There is also plenty of evidence that this strategy works. The National Center for Transgender Equality has been working and insider, science and policy based strategy inside the Beltway for over a decade. A staggering number of the improvements in federal policy under the Obama administration are attributable to their work, and the strategy they employ. On a micro scale this tactic works as well. Ohio is one of the most legally hostile states to transgender people. However, it has one of the most progressive policies for changing driver's license gender marker as a result of wonkish advocates like Julie Van Dyne pursuing a policy based strategy with in the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles.

There are four ways to change the legal framework that transgender people live under: legislation, ballots, case law, and policy changes. The sooner we stop wasting our time tilting at legislative and ballot windmills, the better. Doing the latter requires building the strongest scientific consensus possible.

Some may question whether I am qualified to comment on these matters. All I can say is that I believe in results.

Do you?]]>
우익 크리스천들이 기독교를 파괴하는 10가지 방식,2015:/theblog//3.8249044 2015-10-06T18:55:51-04:00 2015-10-06T05:55:55-04:00 Brynn Tannehill
무신론자이자 LGBT 운동가인 나로선 이건 좋은 일로 보인다. 보수적인 종교가 악랄하고 제정신이 아니고, 증오를 품고 있고, 여성 혐오적이고 반 과학적으로 보이는 속도가 빨라질수록, 우리 사회는 더 빨리 앞으로 나아갈 수 있다. 나는 미국이 정치적, 종교적 난민들을 만들어 내는 곳이 아니라 사람들이 살고 싶은 곳으로 보였으면 좋겠다.

무신론자가 보기에, 보수적인 기독교가 문화적으로 거의 무의미한 상태로 추락하는 것을 부추기는 원인들은 다음과 같다.

1. 이미 패배한 싸움들을 싸운다.

결혼 평등은 기본적으로 끝이 났고, 킴 데이비스의 서커스를 제외하면 대부분의 미국인들은 그 문제에서 이미 넘어갔다. '묻지 말고 말하지 말라'와 그를 둘러싼 논의도 도도새와 마찬가지로 이미 죽은 뒤지만, 미국에서 가장 강력한 반 LGBT 단체는 아직도 레즈비언과 게이 군인들을 욕하고 있다. 심지어 카토 기관과 헤리티지 재단도 다른 문제로 넘어갔다.

햄버거에게 심폐소생술을 하는 것이나 마찬가지인 문화 전쟁만큼 '우리는 의미가 없다'는 걸 드러내는 것도 없다.

2. 게이를 얼마나 증오하느냐에 따라 누가 크리스천인지 정한다.

대부분의 미국인들은 이 정도로 배제적이지 않은데, 자신의 믿음에 대한 가장 큰 연단을 가진 사람들은 이렇게 생각한다는 게 문제다. 사회, 종교, 법적으로 LGBT들을 거부하는 것이 누가 천국에 들어갈지를 정하는 리트머스 시험지라면, 대부분의 미국인들은 당신과 함께 영생을 보내지 않을 거라는 사실에 기뻐할 것이다.

정말이지, 어차피 대부분의 남자들은 일요일에는 집에서 미식축구 중계를 보는 걸 더 좋아한다. 교회에 가야한다는 사회적 압력이 사라지고 있으니, 교회 신도석은 계속 비어갈 것이다.

3. 여성을 소처럼 대한다.

스콧 워커는 2015년 첫 대선 토론에서 여성은 계속 임신해 있으면 죽게 된다 해도 낙태를 받아서는 안 된다고 대답해 자신의 믿음을 분명히 밝혔다. 그 밖에도 강간으로 인해 임신된 것을 '신의 선물'이라고 부른다거나, '합법적 강간'이란 말로 (이성) 부부 사이에서는 강간이 일어날 수 없다고 선언하는 일도 있다.

나는 길레아드 공화국의 가능성이 희박해졌을 때 여성들 대부분이 안도의 한숨을 쉬었을 거라 생각한다.

4. 과학을 거부한다.

닐 디그래스 타이슨은 과학의 위대한 점은 당신이 믿든 믿지 않든 사실이라는 점이라고 말한 적이 있다. 종교적인 보수파들은 이 말을 보고 자기들의 믿음이 부족하다고 생각했던 모양이다. 주제가 기후 변화든, 진화나 빅뱅, LGBT에 대한 성 지향 변화 치료이든, 성 지향, 젠더 정체성, 생식 건강("여성의 몸은 알아서 이런 걸 조절하게 되어 있다")이든, 이들은 전체 과학 커뮤니티의 압도적인 의견 일치를 거부한다.

그러나 청동기 시대의 일화들을 불변의 과학 법칙으로 받아들이는 것은 문제없다고 생각한다.

다른 사람들은 그들을 보며 어떻게 인류가 개울에 쭈그리고 앉아 코에 딸기를 쑤셔넣던 단계에서 진화를 한 걸까 의아해 할 뿐이다.

5. 자신들의 성 생활 외의 모든 사람들의 성 생활을 규탄한다.

종교적인 우파는 말도 안 되는 극단적인 수준으로 다른 사람들의 성 생활을 통제하려 한다. 동성애를 다시 불법으로 해야 한다고 주장하거나, 오럴 섹스를 불법으로 해야 한다고 하거나, 성 교육에서 오직 금욕만을 가르치거나, 텍사스에서 딜도보다 총을 더 쉽게 살 수 있게 하거나, 항문 성교에 대해 헌법에 위배되는 법을 만들려고 하거나, 헤픈 여성이라고 수치를 주거나 피임을 금지하자고 하는 등, 그들은 다른 사람들이 하는 유일한 섹스가 결혼한 이성 부부 간의 아이를 낳기 위한 의도의 섹스가 되도록 가능한 한 모든 일을 하고 있다.

아까도 언급했듯, 섹스를 하겠다는 동의는 부차적인 것으로 보인다. 번식은 그렇지 않다.

문제는 그들은 자신들의 규칙도 제대로 따르지 못한다는 것이다.

몰래 게이 섹스를 하고, 들켰을 경우 게이들 탓이라고 한다. 배우자를 두고 바람을 피우고 게이들 탓을 한다. 고등학교 코치가 미성년자와 섹스를 한다. 자기 아이들이 다른 아이들을 성추행하게 내버려 두고, 신이 추행자를 다 용서하셨다고 선언한다. 자기 아이들이 다른 아이들을 성추행하는 것을 트랜스젠더들 탓이라고 한다. 목사가 아이들을 성추행하고, 교회는 이 문제가 게이들 탓이라고 한다. 여러 아버지들과의 혼외 관계로 아이를 여럿 낳는 것도 문제없다. 당신 어머니 이름이 세라 페일린이라면 당신이 실수를 해도 신은 이해해 주신다.

밀레니얼 세대들이 이들의 이런 말을 진지하게 듣지 않을 만도 하다.

baptist gay

6. 종교의 자유는 크리스천들만을 위한 것이라고 말한다.

보수적인 지도자들 다수가 종교의 자유는 크리스천들에게만 적용되고, 무신론자나 무슬림들에겐 결코 적용되지 않는다는 식으로 몰아갔다. 종교의 자유는 미국인으로서 즐겨야 할 궁극적인 권리라고 주장하되, 그건 올바른 미국인들만을 위한 권리인 셈이다. 올바른 미국인들이란 게이, 여성, 무슬림, 무신론자, 이민자 등등에 대해 자신들과 완전히 똑같은 생각을 지닌 미국인들이다.

7. 자기들이 신을 믿지 않았다면 저질렀을 온갖 끔찍한 일들을 우리에게 이야기한다.

왜인지는 몰라도, 필 로버트슨이나 마이크 허커비 같은 보수적인 크리스천들이 자신이 LGBT거나 무신론자였으면 어땠을지 상상하며 말할 때면 합성 헤로인에 취해 저지른 범죄 행각 같은 이야기가 나온다. 관음증, 강간, 수간, 살인 등 상상할 수 있는 모든 잔혹 행위가 등장한다.

음, 무신론자로서 듣기에는, 초자연적인 신이 벌을 내린다는 위협이 당신이 찰리 맨슨이 되는 것을 막는 유일한 벽이라고 생각하면 정말 엄청나게 무섭다.

8. 자신들의 혐오증을 아이들에게 쏟아낸다.

죄 없는 아이들을 어떻게 대하는지 만큼 사람의 기질을 잘 보여주는 것은 없다. 그러니 의사가 레즈비언 부모를 둔 어린이 환자를 치료하기를 거부할 때면 그 사람의 본질이 드러난다. 성인들이 증오로 가득 찬 집회를 열어 학교에 가려는 트랜스젠더 어린이들에게 고함을 지르면, 당신의 행동을 따뜻하고 애정어린 것으로 보이게 만들 방법이란 없다.

9. 종교의 자유를 차별할 수 있는 특권과 동일시한다.

보수적 크리스천들은 그들의 지닌 가장 중요한 종교적 자유는 LGBT를 차별할 수 있는 권리라는 맥락을 만들어 내려고 노력 중이다. 60년 전이든 지금이든, "우리는 당신 같은 사람들은 여기에 받아주지 않는다."는 말은 추하다. 당신의 가장 소중한 종교적 믿음이 대부분의 사람들이 아주 불쾌하다고 생각하는 것을 중심에 두고 있다면, 추락은 더 빨라질 뿐이다.

대부분 최남동부 지역에 기반한 반 LGBT 종교적 보수파들은 미래에 자신들이 오늘날의 인종 차별주의자들과 같은 모습으로 보일까 봐 계속 걱정한다.

흠. 어떻게 되리라 생각한 걸까? 60년 전에는 지금 그들과 똑같은 사람들이 똑같은 행동을 하며 다른 결과를 기대했다.

역사에서 배울 수 없는 사람들은 역사를 반복할 운명이다.

10. 사람들을 괴롭힘으로써 그들을 얼마나 사랑하는지 보여준다.

LGBT와 그들의 지지자들에게 '간증'하는 것은 그들에게 동성애를 그만두지 않으면 지옥에 갈 거라고 떠들며 LGBT를 괴롭히는 것에 다름 아니다.

LGBT들은 평생 그런 이야기를 들어왔고, 처음 들었던 수천 번은 이미 잊어버렸다. 인터넷 상에서도 이런 괴롭힘이 일어나고 있다.

복음주의자들, 심지어 모르몬 교도들까지도 이런 일을 직장에서, 동료들, 고용인들, 학교의 아이들에게 할 수 없다고 불평했다. 그들이 이런 일을 못하게 되자, 곧 억눌림에 대한 몬티 파이튼적 스케치로 변해간다.

그러나 잠시만 상상해 보라. 직장에서 누군가가 사무실의 한 여성이 너무 뚱뚱하다고 생각했다. 그는 그녀를 볼 때마다 매일 뚱뚱한 사람들은 못생겼고 남들이 싫어하며, 라이프 스타일이 건강하지 못하다고 말한다. 그는 그녀가 일하는 곳에 감량 센터 쿠폰과 다이어트에 대한 책을 잔뜩 가져다 놓는다. 이런 행동은 용납될 수 없다고 그에게 말하자, 그는 자신은 동료가 잘 되기를 바라고, 그래서 건강하지 못한 라이프 스타일을 유지하는 한에는 그녀는 역겹고 사랑받을 수 없다고 말해주는 것 뿐이라고 대답한다.

이건 분명히 엄청나게 불쾌한 행동이지만, 그들은 여기에 종교의 마법 가루를 조금 뿌린다. 그러면 갑자기 우리는 이걸 수정 헌법 제 1조의 고귀한 표현으로 보아야 한다.


난 그런 걸 받아들일 수 없다. 밀레니얼 세대도 마찬가지다.

허핑턴포스트US의 10 Ways Right-Wing Christians Are Destroying Christianity를 번역, 편집한 것입니다.

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10 Ways Right-Wing Christians Are Destroying Christianity,2015:/theblog//3.8213708 2015-10-02T08:23:06-04:00 2016-02-02T06:59:01-05:00 Brynn Tannehill




1. Fighting battles you've already lost.






3. Treating women like cattle.



4. Rejecting science.




5. Condemning everyone else's sex lives but their own.



The problem is, they suck at following their own rules.


No wonder millennials aren't taking any of this seriously.

6. Telling people freedom of religion is only for Christians.





8. Taking out their phobias on children.


9. Equating religious freedom with a special right to discriminate.





10. Showing how much you love people by harassing them







I'm not buying it, and neither are millennials.

Also on The Huffington Post:
How to Spot Anti-Trans Concern Trolls,2015:/theblog//3.8055816 2015-08-29T08:16:17-04:00 2016-02-02T06:59:01-05:00 Brynn Tannehill
The best that can be said of these concern trolls is that they have a very limited playbook. Never fear, though! As a community service, here are the key phrases and ideas that will help you spot them immediately.

1. Concern Troll says, "Transgender people often regret..."

Any time the subject of regret comes up in the media, it's usually in the context of denying transgender people affirming care, or preventing them from transitioning. Because concern troll is very worried about the well being of transgender people, and doesn't want them to rush into anything. Really.

The reality is that the existing guidelines for the treatment of transgender people are designed to prevent people from rushing into transition already, and follow a conservative timeline in order to prevent misdiagnoses. As a result virtually every modern study puts regret below 2 percent. In some other recent longitudinal studies, none of the subjects expressed regret over medically transitioning. When people cited in anecdotes do have regrets, it is mostly because of lack of acceptance, or poor surgical outcomes.

In short, concern troll is more worried about the 1 percent of transgender people who MIGHT not benefit from transition, at the expense of the 99 percent who will.

2. Concern Troll says, "What if society completely accepted gender variance? Then we wouldn't have to..."

This line of thinking usually finishes with "give transgender people medical care," or "need laws protecting transgender people." The entire concept is asinine at many levels.

First, the idea of culturally abolishing the concept of gender is about as likely as humanity abolishing the concept of money.

Next, the idea that we should aim for a perfect society rather than have a system of laws that takes into account how humans have historically harmed each other isn't aiming for utopia. It is snake oil sold by rich, heterosexual white male Christian libertarians who like the fact that being a rich, heterosexual white male Christian is a position of unrivaled privilege.

Beyond that, concern troll ignores the reality of being transgender. They deliberately conflate gender identity, gender expression and ignore the nature of dysphoria in order to sow doubt with readers. They push the notion that if transgender people (well, transgender women, concern troll ignores transgender men) could just put on 50's vintage house dress and flounce around without fear of harassment (and that's a huge assumption to begin with), then we wouldn't have to give those people any medical care.

This completely ignores the reality that transgender people have to look at ourselves in a mirror. Increasing societal acceptance of gender non-conformance does NOTHING to alleviate dysphoria. Minority stress (social pressure and isolation) and dysphoria are two entirely separate concepts.

Why does concern troll say these things? Because it's good to be the king.

3. Concern Troll says, "80 percent of children with cross gender identification desist..."

This comes from a Danish study. However, the actual study doesn't support this conclusion. First, it didn't discriminate between gender non-conforming children and those with insistent, consistent and persistent cross gender identification. Basically, the boys who liked playing with "My Little Pony" and sparkly dresses got lumped in with the ones who announce at 18 months they're a girl, and keep it up for years.

The Danish study also lost track of a lot of the kids enrolled in it, and counted all the children they could not account for as "desisters." The American Psychological Association states that, "this research runs a strong risk of inflating estimates of the number of youth who do not persist with a TGNC identity."

The biggest proponent of the 80 percent narrative, Dr. Kenneth Zucker, pushed the idea that coercive behavior modification therapy could be used on children to change their sexual orientation for decades. Now that changing sexual orientation is passé, he's selling the same snake oil as a "cure" for transgender children. As a result of concerns over whether his "treatments" are ethical, Dr. Zucker's own clinic has forbidden him from taking on new patients.

More recent research has shown that transgender children, and not ones who are simply gender non-conforming, have a gender identity that is as consistent as that of cisgender children. Children who identify more intensely with a gender different than sex assigned at birth are more likely to persist in this gender identification into adolescence and that when gender dysphoria persists through childhood and intensifies into adolescence, the likelihood of long‐term TGNC identification increases.

There is also a growing body of evidence that practices like Zucker's are actively harmful (Hill et al., 2010; Pyne, 2014; Travers et al., 2012; Wallace & Russell, 2013), and that supporting transgender children leads to better mental health outcomes. As a result, there are fewer and fewer professionals who promote rejection of a child and their interests.

When it comes to adolescents, even proponents of the 80 percent figure (like Zucker) admit that if an adolescent has across gender identification, it is very unlikely to ever change.

So why does concern troll keep bringing up the 80 percent figure? Because concern troll wants transgender people back in deep dark safe closet.

4. Concern Troll says, "Dr. Paul McHugh of Johns Hopkins..."

Let's establish who and what Dr. McHugh is. Dr. Paul McHugh is an ultra-Conservative Catholic who blames gays for the church's sexual abuse scandal, believes sexual orientation is a choice and would rather let an 11-year-old girl raped by a relative die rather than have an abortion. He was part of the campaign that led to the murder of abortion provider Dr. George Tiller in 2009.

When he was put in charge of the gender clinic Johns Hopkins in the 1975, by his own admission he intended from beginning to close it. The "study" he did was designed from the start to facilitate his goal. The study itself was pure nonsense, full of non-reproducible results, punishing patients for having jobs that were "too masculine," or having been married to a woman at some point in their lives. McHugh has made it clear he finds cultural acceptance of transgender people unacceptable.

As a result, no reputable researcher will cite his "study," and was not considered credible by any professional medical or mental health organization when developing guidelines for the treatment of transgender individuals.

Why does concern troll bring up Paul McHugh? Because concern troll hopes you won't Google Dr. McHugh.

5. Concern Troll says, "We don't know the long term effects of puberty blockers on children..."

The drug used to block puberty in children, Leuprorelin has been approved for this purpose since 1989. It just hasn't been used on transgender kids. So yes, we don't know what it does 40 years down the road. But then again, by the same standard, we don't know the effects of a lot of drugs 40 years down the road either.

However, the most recent study on the effects of Leuprorelin, on transgender children show considerable benefit so far. The study found that the children who had used blockers, "were no longer experiencing mental health consequences related to gender dysphoria, their quality of life and happiness levels were on par with their non-transgender peers and none expressed any regret about delaying puberty or transitioning." A new, $5.7 million dollar, 5-year large-scale study has just been launched to settle this matter.

So why does concern troll show so much concern? Because concern troll is afraid happy, healthy, beautiful transgender people will convince others that transgender people aren't so scary after all.

6. Concern Troll says, "The 2011 Swedish study..."

Whenever a concern troll brings up Dr. Dehjne's study, they try to use it to prove that transgender people commit suicide at a really high rate. Or that they're just as criminal as men. Or that health care for transgender people is ineffective and should be discontinued. In fact, all of these are either gross representations of the actual findings of the study. Let's take them one by one.

So what does the study say about transgender people and suicide? It's higher, but only statistically so for those who transitioned before 1989. Afterwards, there's no statistically significant difference between transgender people and the general population.

What does it say about criminal convictions? It says the same thing, no statistically significant different for those who transitioned after 1989.

What does it say about the efficacy of health care for transgender people? It says the study shouldn't be used to make any judgments about the efficacy of transgender health care, because there is no control group, and that the consensus is health care is beneficial.

So what does the study ACTUALLY recommend? Transgender people need better follow up care after surgery.

That's it.

So why does concern troll bring this up? Because concern troll hopes no one will read the actual study.

7. Concern Troll says, "What if people didn't have to be transgender?"

The line of thinking here always goes the same way. Transgender people suffer from suicidality, depression, drug abuse, homelessness, unemployment, etc... far more than the general population. If they weren't transgender anymore, then these bad things would go away, right? Wong. This is effectively no different than asking someone, "Have you tried not being gay?"

For most transgender people, the answer is of course we tried not being transgender, and it nearly killed us. As bad as things are after coming out, it's still better than the closet where we were. That's why we came out in the first place.


It is rare for a concern troll to offer any ideas on how one might choose not to be transgender, or what sorts of credible therapists might help someone become "not transgender."

What concern troll leaves out is that no such treatment exists.

The world's leading body on transgender health care (WPATH) states: "Treatment aimed at trying to change a person's gender identity and expression to become more congruent with sex assigned at birth has been attempted in the past without success, particularly in the long term. Such treatment is no longer considered ethical."

When the concern troll is cornered and forced to recommend something specific, it's the same pray-away-the-gay organizations that failed so miserably at making people "not gay."

So why does concern troll ask this? Because concern troll is sad no one like pray-away-the-gay anymore. Maybe work this time with trans, though.

8. Concern Troll says, "The quality of studies on transgender people are poor..."

Medical studies on transgender people have two very difficult hurdles. The first is being double blind. There's really no placebo for hormones and surgery. It's not as if you can perform gender reassignment surgery on someone without them noticing it. People don't wake up one morning and say, "Whoa! When did I get a vagina?"

The second issue is control groups. There is an accepted body of evidence that transition related health care is beneficial, and that denying it carries a strong risk. In order for a study to happen, and especially if there are human subjects involved, it has to be approved and monitored by an ethics review board.

Conducting a study where you deny necessary medical care to people, and there is evidence that denying it will dramatically and unnecessarily increase the risk of suicide and mortality will never make it past an ethics board (IRB).

Beyond that, there's a strong chance the control group will "cheat" by finding medical services outside the study if they're desperate enough.

The last time someone got a transgender surgical study with a control group through an IRB was 25 years ago. This study found that the group receiving treatment did significantly better than the control group.

Concern trolls are well aware of this, and also well aware that most people won't examine their question further.

So why does concern troll say this? Because they know that no one will be allowed to conduct a study that will meet their impossible requirements.

9. Concern Troll says, "Transgender is really a sexual disorder."

There's a small group of people promoting the discredited theory that all transgender women are either self-hating homosexual men, or heterosexual men with an out of control fetish (known as Blanchard's Autogynephilic Theory).

The only people who actually promote this theory are purveyors of reparative therapy, anti-LGBT hate groups, some small circles of anti-transgender radical feminists and a small cluster of people who have invested their professional reputations in promoting the idea. When concern trolls bring this up, they try to not sound anti-transgender, claiming that even though transgender people are perverts and sexual deviants, they don't hold anything against them morally. They claim they're just interested in "spreading the truth," and that they oppose discrimination against the people they just called sexual deviants.

The problem is, these concern trolls are more than happy to let hate groups use their pet theory to argue for discrimination, and even encourage members of the hate groups on their own bulletin boards. One of the primary promoters of this narrative, J. Michael Bailey, even offered free copies of his book to a group whose sole purpose is opposition to legal protections for transgender people. They also go online to troll transgender people and humiliate them.

So why does concern troll say this? Because calling gay men pedophiles has failed. Maybe work on trans people this time.

10. Concern Troll says, "We give health care to transgender people, and bad things still happen."

This is perhaps the easiest to debunk. We've already established that the overwhelming body of research shows that transgender health care and acceptance is beneficial. This is accepted as a truism by every major medical and mental health organization in America. However, a lifetime of prejudice, harassment and discrimination both leaves scars, and follows you around even after you have transitioned.

What the concern troll says is akin to asking why we give prosthetic legs to people, when they're still going to walk with a limp anyway.

Because it's better than the alternative of doing nothing, and it's the best option we have now.

So why does concern troll say this? Because concern troll assumes you won't think.

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Pretty Little Liars Transphobic Writing Is Hackneyed, Harmful,2015:/theblog//3.7979754 2015-08-12T20:05:28-04:00 2016-02-02T06:59:01-05:00 Brynn Tannehill Pretty Little Liars has been leading up to a reveal of who the hiding-in-plain-sight-all-along arch-villain was. Tuesday, the show revealed the psychotic antagonist to be Charlotte "CeCe" DiLaurentis.

Born Charles DiLaurentis. Who is crazy, and transgender, and crazy because they're transgender and spent time in an asylum because they're crazy. Because transgender. While the show's producers have done a hand wave saying that CeCe comes from a crazy family and that all this has nothing to do with her being transgender, this claim is simply not credible. The rest of the "crazy" family aren't doing the things that make CeCe the "Big Bad" of the show.

First, this "twist" was already cliché when Ace Ventura did it in 1994 four years after Silence of the Lambs did it in 1991, 11 years after Dressed to Kill and 31 years after Norman Bates cross-dressed his way through Psycho. Using transgender people and their transitions as a twist, and a way to explain psychotic behavior, is just plain lazy writing and has been for 50 plus years. It's the "big-bad unmasking" equivalent to revealing that all of the 9th season of Dallas was all just a dream.

If George Lucas had made Jar-Jar Binks a crack dealer, it still wouldn't be as hackneyed and offensive as what Marlene King and her writers have created. Even the name they chose is insensitive: CeCe McDonald is a transgender woman of color who went to a men's prison for 19 months defending herself against a drunken Neo-Nazi.

So let's look at all the stereotypes they hit:

Transgender people are crazy. Check

Transgender people are deceivers. Check.

Transgender people's identities aren't real (because they're crazy). Check.

Transgender people are dangerous. Check.



Great job. Have a cookie.

What's worse is that the producer should know better. From the 1870's onwards, the concept of "female hysteria" was used to dismiss anything women thought, did or said, as well as their objections to being labeled as such. Donald Trump's odious comments about Megyn Kelly echo those 19th century labels, and demonstrate that when you categorize an entire group of people as mentally incompetent, it sticks around for generations.

It's also not as if the writers weren't warned this was a really, really bad idea in feminist online media content months ago. It was noted that the show had already handled pronouns badly, and clearly had no idea how transgender people live, given the character they were speculating about.

And therein lies the problem. It isn't as if there aren't tons of transgender people to talk to. It's not like transgender studies, journal articles, blogs, authors, actors, activists or reality TV shows are hard to find these days. The shows' writers weren't interested in telling a new or different story, they were telling the story that people want to hear; the story that they have heard over and over before.

There's comfort in people who are different than you being uncomfortable and dangerous. Them versus us. It's an easy narrative, and it's one transgender people can't fight back against. Everyone knows transgender people are mentally ill, right? Or are a threat to women and children. Of course crazy people deny being any of these things.

Is it any wonder we can't find jobs when such stereotypes predominate and have been pushed out by lazy hacks for decades? Or can't get housing? Or medical care? Or that our families forsake us? And when we're broke, homeless and completely alone in the world when we choose to end our lives, you look at us and say, "Well that's just what crazy people do."

It's this sort of crass logic that lets the privileged look at everyone else in America who is suffering from systemic violence, oppression and silencing and say, "they probably deserved it."

Because looking at yourself in the mirror and saying "I'm part of the problem," is much harder than labeling others whom you see as broken, inferior or deserving of what befalls them as a class.

And you, Marlene King, are a part of the problem.

A Failure to Listen,2015:/theblog//3.7853572 2015-07-24T13:35:53-04:00 2016-02-02T06:59:01-05:00 Brynn Tannehill

This realization started with the second panel I attended, titled "We Are One: Overcoming the Shared Opposition of the LGBT and Reproductive Rights Movement." The basics of where both movements stand are easy to see: LGBT rights are moving steadily forward, and reproductive rights are in rapid decline. The group of reproductive rights advocates on stage wasn't so much a panel, as a plea for help.

"We marched for marriage. Where are you for us now?"

"Why are you declaring victory and going home? We're getting hammered by the same people you just fought."

"There were thousands of people at the marriage rally. We can only get a couple dozen for our rights."

"Reproductive rights aren't just a women's issue. Queer women and trans men get, pregnant or raped too."

While I know many transgender women, such as Cristan Williams, who recognize and fight for the intersection of all our rights to health care and bodily autonomy, the LGBT movement as a whole is not standing with many of the people who stood with us in the fight for marriage equality.

This is not a new phenomenon. Prominent transgender women such as Autumn Sandeen, Paula Neira and Allyson Robinson fought DADT and its aftermath relentlessly. Yet when DADT and DOMA were done, the number of staunch non-transgender (cisgender) allies who dedicated themselves to ending the medical ban on transgender service members was a very short list. The indefatigable Sue Fulton and the ever-passionate Fiona Dawson are among them.

More startling at NetRoots was how badly we're doing on race as a progressive movement as a whole, and the LGBT community is no exception.

Publicly, it was shocking to me that Senator Bernie Sanders wasn't prepared to talk about the issues seen as most urgent to the black community. I was beyond appalled that Governor O'Malley possessed so little cultural awareness that he actually used the phrase "All Lives Matter." This is a catch phrase for conservatives who want to side step the deadly and disturbing intersection of race and police forces. I would expect snarky, entitled 20-something white bloggers who blog over at sites like The Federalist or The Blaze to use language like this, not a Democratic candidate for President at a conference full of progressives.

Further inside the conference, there were deep divisions as well. I was blown away that some white LGBT people objected to the fact that there was a Queer People of Color caucus, because the caucus only allowed queer people of color to attend.

Yes, you read that right.

The lowest point for me was at the equality caucus, where white, male, cisgender people were telling queer people of color that their experiences weren't relevant to the discussion, then refusing to recognize their own privilege. I have rarely felt more uncomfortable, and it was certainly the most uncomfortable I have ever felt in a supposedly progressive, queer space.

That's why when the people of color walked out, I followed. If this wasn't a safe space for them, it wasn't one I wanted to be in either.

It is the conceit of activists that if we just could get people in power to listen, and really hear, we could change hearts and minds and make progress happen. It is therefore ironic when we, as leading activists, are unable to open our own minds enough to listen to others when they try to tell us about injustices different from the ones we have experienced.

We somehow expect others to empathize with us enough to be called to action on our behalf, yet all too often lack the empathy and drive to answer other people's calls to action. The magnificent few who do, who dedicate themselves to a cause not their own, are treated well by history.

Lingering social injustices in the United States make the entire fight for marriage equality seem pale in comparison. Women are losing the right to their own bodies, unarmed black people are murdered annually by an unaccountable militarized police force and transgender immigrants are raped with impunity in ICE custody. It feels like we're too busy taking a victory lap to notice we're failing at the intersectionality we're paying lip service to.

It's time to do unto others, as they did for us.]]>
It's Not Over,2015:/theblog//3.7681488 2015-07-04T09:11:11-04:00 2016-02-02T06:59:01-05:00 Brynn Tannehill
"You must be very happy," he said glumly, "you guys got everything you wanted."

"No," I replied, "there's a lot left to do."

Because it's not over. Not by a long shot. Not when conservatives are already looking for ways to chip away at marriage equality the way they whittled down reproductive rights to nothing in many states.

Not while it's legal in 28 states to get married on Saturday and fired on Monday because you got married. Not while denying housing, jobs, medical care and services to LGBT people is legal in 28 states, and doing the same thing to transgender people is legal in 32. Not when federal protections for LGBT people have languished for over 20 years, and don't have a prayer until at least 2023.

It isn't over yet.

Not when people are fighting to make bullying of LGBT kids legal as long as it is bullying with sincerely held religious beliefs. Not when 40% of all homeless children are LGBT, because discarding them like trash is ok because they're queer. Not when children with queer mothers are 50% more likely to live in poverty than children with straight parents.

It isn't over yet.

Not when conservatives in statehouses are nullifying all local protections for LGBT people, or passing license to discriminate bills aimed squarely at queer folk. Not when there were almost a dozen bills in legislatures this year designed to drive transgender people out of entire states by giving them a choice: arrest and extreme violence every time they use a public bathroom.

It isn't over yet.

Not when transgender people are legally barred from getting correct government identification unless they undergo expensive and often unwanted surgical procedures, and even then that often isn't enough to obtain ID. Not when transgender people cannot obtain medically necessary health care because other people don't feel like allowing it based solely on their religious beliefs. Not when religious hospitals can refuse to employ or treat LGBT people. Not when religious conservatives are fighting tooth and nail to ensure that the practice of "reparative therapy" on children endures, and remains legal in 48 states.

It isn't over yet.

Not when transgender people are still vilified and murdered in record numbers this year. Not when conservative commentators are calling for transgender people to be discriminated against in every aspect of life. Not when the most popular conservative blogger online calls all transgender people "delusional," "sick", "freaks" who should be locked up in mental institutions and gets over 238,000 shares on Facebook for it. Not when our own government still labels transgender people as sexual deviants and undesirables.

It isn't over yet.

Not when transgender people are twice as likely to be unemployed and four times more likely to live in desperate poverty despite being twice as likely as the general population to hold advanced post-graduate degrees. Not when queer women of all types suffer high levels of economic discrimination, along with their children. Not when transgender immigrants detained by ICE made up only one of every 500 detainees, they accounted for one of every five confirmed cases of sexual assault.

It's not even close to over yet.

But we will win.

We won the right to marry whom we love, and we will win the right to be honest about our families and our lives at work without fear of retribution or punishment. We will win the right to live without fear of eviction.

We will win the right to no longer suffer the humiliation of being told "we don't serve your kind here." We will win the right to go to school, and to have legal recourse against both our tormentors, and those who allow it. We will end the torture and barbarism of reparative therapy, by pressing home the message that you can't fix what isn't broken.

It will be over when no child is thrown into the streets for being LGBT. It will be over when no one is afraid to come out. It will be over when no Christian is belittled for loving and accepting their LGBT brothers and sisters. It will be over when no one is embarrassed of being gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender.

It falls upon us to end all of this.

So revel in this long and hard fought victory for marriage equality this week. Then roll up your sleeves and continue the fight next. Marriage equality is only one piece. To take the steps necessary to seeing the day when we can say we have won we must take this celebration to rest, recharge, and commit ourselves to carrying to further progress.

Because it's not over.

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