(6 pm. – promoted by ek hornbeck)
As people are fond of noting…sometimes as if I didn’t know this…the best way to get people to believe in our need for equal rights is to share our stories. I’ve tried to do that in my time here, which began in 2005.
Today I have a few more people I’d like you to meet.
And there’s a boycott that needs to be countered.
Chandra R. Thomas interviews James Newton for a story entitled, Transgender Man of Color Shares his Story at Juvenile Justice Information Exchange.
Trans people want to be like everybody else. I just want happiness and to find someone to settle down with; not that Jerry Springer life that they show on TV. I’m just this little nerdy guy. Transgender people are like everyone else. We just want to live our lives and just be happy.
–James Newton
Thomas also interviewed Connor Gillis for a story entitled, From She to He: A Transgender Journey of Self-Discovery for Juvenile Justice Information Exchange, which I strongly urge people to add as one of their resources.
Transgender people have a lot more stigma working against them. Over the years there’s been a lot more gay and lesbian characters on TV and in movies, but transgender people are rarely shown, and when they are they’re not usually shown in a positive light. People are afraid of it and they don’t want to know more about transgender people.
–Em Elliot, field organizer, Georgia Equality and Georgia Safe Schools Coalition
And there is this interview of Red, a non-binary person. Red is special projects coordinator for the San Diego LGBT Community Center. At the link you can access Red being interviewed by Mark Gabrish Conlan for Zenger’s Newsmagazine.
Red is living a life that makes them, in essence, a minority within a minority within a minority. Transgender people are a relatively small, though significant, part of the Queer community; and Red is a minority among Transgender people because most Transgender people accept a binary concept of gender and simply believe that their inner being doesn’t match the physiology of the body they were born into or the gender they were, to use one of those phrases whose meaning Red had to explain to me, “coercively assigned” at birth.
But every story that is shared is countered by the actions of our foes. When there is a transperson shown by the media, such as the character Adam on Degrassi from Teen Nick.
Unfortunately, Adam’s storyline is one of two that the Florida Family Association thinks have crossed the line of good taste and has therefore organized a sponsor boycott of the show. The other story concerns a gay quarterback on the football team, which FFA thinks tarnishes the good name of football.
Canton told The Huffington Post that the LGBT content “licentiously appealed to the prurient nature of teenagers,” saying he believed that the scenarios also promoted behavior that doesn’t naturally occur in high school settings.
And I think that it is statistically improbable that you will have a female-to-male transgender who is in love with a lesbian or bisexual in a school setting.
–David Canton, Florida Family Association
Statistically, transpeople don’t exist. So according to the FFA we should not be shown on television.
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…but I encourage people who do to note the sponsors and maybe drop them a line encouraging them to continue sponsoring the show.