Obama Outlines Plan for LGBT issues

[Kanastrous]

I'm partial to unstraight. Seems to cover everybody who isn't the stereotypical heterosexual type.

Maybe 'unstraight' isn't as good as curvy, which seems more complimentary, somehow. After all 'unstraight' somehow sounds like it's not as good as 'straight.' Curvy, on the other hand, is just as good, only different.

Of course, what I'd really love is to see the all such terms become irrelevant and fall into disuse, when everybody becomes mature enough to not give a damn, who sleeps who whom, or who's felt the need to correct their physical form, and categorizing people by sexual procilivities is recognized for the foolishness that it is.

Yeah, I know. Not in my lifetime. But it's nice to fantasize.

[JCady]

Transgender and transexual people are very suspicious of anyone who talks about just "gay rights", because there is a consistent pattern of gays actively and maliciously trying to cut transgender and transexual people out of the movement. Representative Barney Frank is on record as saying that that the LGBT movement must focus exclusively on gay rights and can "reconsider" trans rights in FIFTY YEARS, and that anyone who supports trans rights is a "rabid ideological purist" who should be ignored.

Pint0 Xtreme is using the EXACT SAME LANGUAGE that Barney and his crowd use to describe Stonewall, claiming that it was purely a gay-rights event and that trans is a "Johnny Come Lately" issue which was tacked onto the gay rights movement at a later time.

You know, after reading this I think I'm going to just use "gay rights" from now on every time I describe the LGBT rights movement as a whole just to piss you off. Quite frankly you're making a mountain out of a molehill.

This isn't theoretical discrimination. Barney Frank already cut trans rights out of the federal ENDA, arguing that it was more important to make the Democrats LOOK GOOD by slam dunking a gay-rights bill than to "risk" trying to pass the original version which had both gay and trans rights. Frank outright admitted that the Democrats had more than enough votes to push the trans-inclusive ENDA if they really wanted to, but claimed that it was unfair to demand that the party use up valuable political capital by pushing swing Democrats to vote for both gay and trans rights.

[General Zod]

This isn't theoretical discrimination. Barney Frank already cut trans rights out of the federal ENDA, arguing that it was more important to make the Democrats LOOK GOOD by slam dunking a gay-rights bill than to "risk" trying to pass the original version which had both gay and trans rights. Frank outright admitted that the Democrats had more than enough votes to push the trans-inclusive ENDA if they really wanted to, but claimed that it was unfair to demand that the party use up valuable political capital by pushing swing Democrats to vote for both gay and trans rights.

You're missing my point. According to you, because one douchebag politician a good deal of us might not even have heard of discriminated against transgenders while mentioning gay rights, anyone who dares uses gay rights as a blanket term for the LGBT movement MUST be discriminating against transgenders. Yeah, that's real BRILLIANT reasoning there.

[Samuel]

Umm, Ender's got the right idea; we do indeed tend to frown on Internet Toughguy-ism here and he's daring AM to either put up or shut up.

Except the required putting up involves multiple capital crimes- lets not dare him to do it. Especially given the fact all he said he needed was money to get weaponry.

[JCady]

This isn't theoretical discrimination. Barney Frank already cut trans rights out of the federal ENDA, arguing that it was more important to make the Democrats LOOK GOOD by slam dunking a gay-rights bill than to "risk" trying to pass the original version which had both gay and trans rights. Frank outright admitted that the Democrats had more than enough votes to push the trans-inclusive ENDA if they really wanted to, but claimed that it was unfair to demand that the party use up valuable political capital by pushing swing Democrats to vote for both gay and trans rights.

You're missing my point. According to you, because one douchebag politician a good deal of us might not even have heard of discriminated against transgenders while mentioning gay rights, anyone who dares uses gay rights as a blanket term for the LGBT movement MUST be discriminating against transgenders. Yeah, that's real BRILLIANT reasoning there.

Barney Frank isn't "just" a douchebag politician, he's hands down the leading gay rights politician. And it's not just him; there is a very strong movement among gays to try to push trans rights to the back burner or dump it out of the movement altogether. Using the term "gay rights" to refer to the entire LGBTI movement implies that everyone else is so unimportant that we can be dumped into "and unstated miscellaneous attachments to gay rights", and that's EXACTLY the attitude Frank and his lot want.

[Illuminatus Primus]

This isn't theoretical discrimination. Barney Frank already cut trans rights out of the federal ENDA, arguing that it was more important to make the Democrats LOOK GOOD by slam dunking a gay-rights bill than to "risk" trying to pass the original version which had both gay and trans rights. Frank outright admitted that the Democrats had more than enough votes to push the trans-inclusive ENDA if they really wanted to, but claimed that it was unfair to demand that the party use up valuable political capital by pushing swing Democrats to vote for both gay and trans rights.

You're missing my point. According to you, because one douchebag politician a good deal of us might not even have heard of discriminated against transgenders while mentioning gay rights, anyone who dares uses gay rights as a blanket term for the LGBT movement MUST be discriminating against transgenders. Yeah, that's real BRILLIANT reasoning there.

Barney Frank isn't "just" a douchebag politician, he's hands down the leading gay rights politician. And it's not just him; there is a very strong movement among gays to try to push trans rights to the back burner or dump it out of the movement altogether. Using the term "gay rights" to refer to the entire LGBTI movement implies that everyone else is so unimportant that we can be dumped into "and unstated miscellaneous attachments to gay rights", and that's EXACTLY the attitude Frank and his lot want.

HE DOESN'T MATTER, since the argument he made flew right over your head. Superficial similarity in terminology does not mean moral equivalence. If you freak out on every progressive straight person for saying "gay rights" instead of "LGBTIQ rights" or whatever over terminology on the grounds that "if you do not SAY TRANSPEOPLE when talking about the rights, you are excluding and discriminating against them, and clearly in league with gay and straight anti-trans bigots!" than you're just going to intimidate and bewilder. This is neurotic thread-hijack, based on the presumption that anyone using "gay rights" for "LGBTIQ rights" is a Frank-esque, throw-the-trans-over-the-boat bigot, and completely unfair. That's an unwarranted assumption and leap in logic. You could have stated, "warning, this is a concern in our community that we will be excluded" etc etc, but instead you hijacked the thread as if the people you were replying to actually are Frank-esque gay-before-trans bigots, which is clearly untrue.

[Kanastrous]

What's the "I" for, "LGBTI?"

Intersexed?

[Edi]

You're missing my point. According to you, because one douchebag politician a good deal of us might not even have heard of discriminated against transgenders while mentioning gay rights, anyone who dares uses gay rights as a blanket term for the LGBT movement MUST be discriminating against transgenders. Yeah, that's real BRILLIANT reasoning there.

Barney Frank isn't "just" a douchebag politician, he's hands down the leading gay rights politician. And it's not just him; there is a very strong movement among gays to try to push trans rights to the back burner or dump it out of the movement altogether. Using the term "gay rights" to refer to the entire LGBTI movement implies that everyone else is so unimportant that we can be dumped into "and unstated miscellaneous attachments to gay rights", and that's EXACTLY the attitude Frank and his lot want.

A lot of us aren't even American, so we don't give a shit about who Barney Frank is. The fucking point, which is sailing far over your head, is that for most people here, the internal divisions within the LGBT community are completely unknown. SDnet is already extremely hostile to people of all stripes who would deny others equal rights based on sexual orientation, gender status (including transgender issues etc) or other similar irrelevant things. We may not know all the nitty-gritty details, but that does not change the basic setup of how it is here. Keep that in mind.

So if you want to fly off the handle and start blasting people who happen to use the LGBT acronym to refer to the non-heterosexual people as a whole (because that acronym actually covers nearly all of them, and does cover all of them if you add I for "indeterminate" or "intersexed" or whatever the proper term is to the end), go right ahead. Just don't be surprised and get all indignant when you get blasted with both barrels, because it will be well deserved.

The people here are mostly your allies on the issues, but you're doing a bang-up job of alienating many of them. Keep going this way and you'll soon be relegated to the loony bin in most people's minds.

[General Zod]

Barney Frank isn't "just" a douchebag politician, he's hands down the leading gay rights politician. And it's not just him; there is a very strong movement among gays to try to push trans rights to the back burner or dump it out of the movement altogether.

And no, the term "gay rights" does not encompass transgender people. Using the term "gay rights" to refer to the entire LGBTI movement implies that everyone else is so unimportant that we can be dumped into "and unstated miscellaneous attachments to gay rights", and that's EXACTLY the attitude Frank and his lot want.

So your solution is to be a confrontational douchebag every time someone dares to not consistently use LGBT when describing the whole movement? Yeah, that's a great way of gaining support.

[JCady]

What's the "I" for, "LGBTI?"

Intersexed?

Yeah.

[JCady]

Barney Frank isn't "just" a douchebag politician, he's hands down the leading gay rights politician. And it's not just him; there is a very strong movement among gays to try to push trans rights to the back burner or dump it out of the movement altogether.

And no, the term "gay rights" does not encompass transgender people. Using the term "gay rights" to refer to the entire LGBTI movement implies that everyone else is so unimportant that we can be dumped into "and unstated miscellaneous attachments to gay rights", and that's EXACTLY the attitude Frank and his lot want.

So your solution is to be a confrontational douchebag every time someone dares to not consistently use LGBT when describing the whole movement? Yeah, that's a great way of gaining support.

No, my solution is to point out that it excludes transgender people and that this is significant because of the political situation. My comment was perfectly calm in tone; it's Pint0 Xtreme who flew off the handle at being criticized.

[Illuminatus Primus]

No, my solution is to point out that it excludes transgender people and that this is significant because of the political situation. My comment was perfectly calm in tone; it's Pint0 Xtreme who flew off the handle at being criticized.

No, you continued repeating yourself even after people clarified their stance toward transpeople (thus negating the potential risk behind their terminology that you were concerned about), and after people rightfully pointed out the Frank red herring as just that.

[General Zod]

No, my solution is to point out that it excludes transgender people and that this is significant because of the political situation. My comment was perfectly calm in tone; it's Pint0 Xtreme who flew off the handle at being criticized.

Being calm has nothing to do with it, you're a confrontational douchebag because you made a wholly baseless accusation comparing him to a jackass that wants to suppress transgender rights based on nothing more than semantics.

[JCady]

So if you want to fly off the handle and start blasting people who happen to use the LGBT acronym to refer to the non-heterosexual people as a whole (because that acronym actually covers nearly all of them, and does cover all of them if you add I for "indeterminate" or "intersexed" or whatever the proper term is to the end), go right ahead. Just don't be surprised and get all indignant when you get blasted with both barrels, because it will be well deserved.

The difference is that Pint0 Xtreme stated that Stonewall was a purely anti-gay event which started the gay rights movement. The only time he mentions "LGBT" is in the more general statement that violent resistance HAS occurred as part of the civil rights movement. Putting the two statements together implies that transgender people were not involved at the Stonewall incident but were involved in other instances of violent resistance, which is incorrect.

I simply corrected this factual inaccuracy and pointed out that perpetuating it is plays directly into the "gay rights only" strategy. I never accused anyone of being a part of Frank's faction, just that they're unintentionally using the exact same terminology and that doing so harms transgender people whether or not it is intended to do so.

[Knife]

I find the OT both humorous and frightening all at the same time. While the LGBT-abc-z(don't want to miss a letter in the acronym) should obviously get the same rights, obvious resistence will hamper it. Though that said, over the last couple decades stead progress has happened to the point where the desired effect will happen probably within our lifetimes. Armed militancy is usually for those losing the fight not slowly winning, those with their preverbial back against the wall, and to jump to that phase only ups the violance for no or little gain.

It's also funny to note the attack on Mormons (please continue, I don't like the faith much either) however the majority of the 'growth' of the faith has more to do with breeding than actual convertions and even at that; down town Mormon-vile in SLC just went blue this election. Long story short, people are being denied rights and that's bad. However, they aren't being slaughtered so no need to start killing in opposition when all trends in the demographics point toward victory.

[Knife]

So if you want to fly off the handle and start blasting people who happen to use the LGBT acronym to refer to the non-heterosexual people as a whole (because that acronym actually covers nearly all of them, and does cover all of them if you add I for "indeterminate" or "intersexed" or whatever the proper term is to the end), go right ahead. Just don't be surprised and get all indignant when you get blasted with both barrels, because it will be well deserved.

The difference is that Pint0 Xtreme stated that Stonewall was a purely anti-gay event which started the gay rights movement. The only time he mentions "LGBT" is in the more general statement that violent resistance HAS occurred as part of the civil rights movement. Putting the two statements together implies that transgender people were not involved at the Stonewall incident but were involved in other instances of violent resistance, which is incorrect.

I simply corrected this factual inaccuracy and pointed out that perpetuating it is plays directly into the "gay rights only" strategy. I never accused anyone of being a part of Frank's faction, just that they're unintentionally using the exact same terminology and that doing so harms transgender people whether or not it is intended to do so.

You know what? Get together with your advocacy groups and come up with some damn standard terminology so your supporters can stop being maligned for lack of proper lingo and/or decriptive terms before you go apeshit on people.

[General Zod]

The difference is that Pint0 Xtreme stated that Stonewall was a purely anti-gay event which started the gay rights movement. The only time he mentions "LGBT" is in the more general statement that violent resistance HAS occurred as part of the civil rights movement. Putting the two statements together implies that transgender people were not involved at the Stonewall incident but were involved in other instances of violent resistance, which is incorrect.

He never stated it was purely anti gay. You just made that assumption simply because he didn't consistently mention transgenders. But feel free to keep patting yourself on the back for beating up imaginary arguments.

I simply corrected this factual inaccuracy and pointed out that perpetuating it is plays directly into the "gay rights only" strategy. I never accused anyone of being a part of Frank's faction, just that they're unintentionally using the exact same terminology and that doing so harms transgender people whether or not it is intended to do so.

That's not what your original post implied. You're effectively lumping anyone who uses the term in with Barney Frank and his crowd.

Pint0 Xtreme is using the EXACT SAME LANGUAGE that Barney and his crowd use to describe Stonewall, claiming that it was purely a gay-rights event and that trans is a "Johnny Come Lately" issue which was tacked onto the gay rights movement at a later time.

[Pint0 Xtreme]

JCady, I have nothing else to add to your delusional rantings since everyone else has already fully articulated my thoughts.

But back on topic, the good news is that ENDA will likely include transgendered individuals again when it gets passed into Congress for consideration next year. I don't know how many social conservative Democrats make up the Senate and the House but I just hope it isn't enough to block these bills. The point of my original statement was that while it's true that most successful civil rights fights have included violence in their resistance, the violence is not constant. I would argue that it was needed back in 69 but we're far beyond that point right now.

[Invictus ChiKen]

The difference is that Pint0 Xtreme stated that Stonewall was a purely anti-gay event which started the gay rights movement. The only time he mentions "LGBT" is in the more general statement that violent resistance HAS occurred as part of the civil rights movement. Putting the two statements together implies that transgender people were not involved at the Stonewall incident but were involved in other instances of violent resistance, which is incorrect.

I simply corrected this factual inaccuracy and pointed out that perpetuating it is plays directly into the "gay rights only" strategy. I never accused anyone of being a part of Frank's faction, just that they're unintentionally using the exact same terminology and that doing so harms transgender people whether or not it is intended to do so.

So saying gay rights instead of LGBT harms transgendered people...
So all this time I've been hurting people while advocating gay rights, arguing with friends, donating when I can, writing letters.

WOW! Just, wow! I never realized I was such a one Ferret threat to the whole movement.

Keep it up you might even be able to alienate a few people from the gay rights movement all together. Like the lot that shouted the N word at a group of Black people because Blacks voted so strongly against gay marriage. Never mind this lot carried "No on 8" signs.
Link for that one

I'm sorry I know this may not be coherent but are people like you secretly getting funds from "Pro-Family" groups to try and turn people against the gay rights movement or what?

[JCady]

But back on topic, the good news is that ENDA will likely include transgendered individuals again when it gets passed into Congress for consideration next year.

The gay-only version of ENDA already passed the House, and the Democratic leadership in the Senate announced that they were going to fast-track a matching gay-only version and not even consider putting trans rights back in. That may change now that there's no threat of a Presidential veto and the Democrats have super-solid majorities in both the House and the Senate, but as far as I'm aware there's been no official statement that they're going to reconsider trans rights. The "gay rights only" crowd, of course, is continuing to argue that ENDA Lite should be rammed through Congress ASAP and that a separate trans rights law can be passed at a later time.

The problem with that is we've heard it before; that argument was used to pass gay-but-not-trans civil rights laws in several states, and not a single time was the promise to "come back for" trans rights ever actually honored. Instead, the gay rights advocates kept pushing for . . . more gay rights. That's why even as uber-liberal a state as Massachusetts still has no transgender rights laws at all, while gays enjoy full civil rights protection up to and including full marriage rights. The really scary part is they have EVERYTHING they ever wanted. . . and they're still they're still saying that advocating trans rights would "dilute their success", they want to go fight for marriage rights in other states instead of trans rights in their own state.

That is the historical background and perspective that trans people are coming from, okay? There are just way, way too many gay people who agree that of course transgender people should have equal rights as a matter of principle, but then turn around and argue that actual advocacy for trans rights is bad because it "gets in the way of" gay rights.

[JCady]

Neep it up you might even be able to alienate a few people from the gay rights movement all together. Like the lot that shouted the N word at a group of Black people because Blacks voted so strongly against gay marriage. Never mind this lot carried "No on 8" signs.
Link for that one

The entire "No On 8" campaign was a disorganized clusterfuck because way too many people assumed that there was no way one of the most progressive and solidly liberal states in the country would pass an anti-gay law like that. "No On 8" was barely even treading water until the Mormon Church started dumping millions into "Yes On 8" attack ads, and even then "No On 8" did very little to fight back.

In particular, "No On 8" assumed that the black community would automatically vote no because it was "obvious" that being pro-Obama and being pro-civil rights went hand in hand. That's why they didn't even RESPOND to the "Yes On 8" ad which falsely portrayed Obama as pro-8; neither "No On 8" nor the Obama campaign ever came out and clearly said that was a lie.

[Darth Ruinus]

So saying gay rights instead of LGBT harms transgendered people...
So all this time I've been hurting people while advocating gay rights, arguing with friends, donating when I can, writing letters.

WOW! Just, wow! I never realized I was such a one Ferret threat to the whole movement.

As an honestly ignorant person of the whole GLBT community (I know only 1 bisexual person) shouldn't all the identities be included by a letter? So GLBTTQQIPPUT2AAO? If exclusion is bad, then shouldn't it be written out in its entirity? Or would making the name this long just be insulting?

[JCady]

So saying gay rights instead of LGBT harms transgendered people...
So all this time I've been hurting people while advocating gay rights, arguing with friends, donating when I can, writing letters.

WOW! Just, wow! I never realized I was such a one Ferret threat to the whole movement.

As an honestly ignorant person of the whole GLBT community (I know only 1 bisexual person) shouldn't all the identities be included by a letter? So GLBTTQQIPPUT2AAO? If exclusion is bad, then shouldn't it be written out in its entirity? Or would making the name this long just be insulting?

The most common formulation is LGBT, or sometimes LGBTI -- the inclusion of intersex rights is somewhat controversial because many intersex people insist that intersex is a strictly medical condition which has nothing to do with civil rights. In my opinion -- remember, I'm intersex -- that is mostly a matter of wanting to stay well away from the conservative backlash against "pervert rights".

I think the "alphabet soup" effect gets silly after a while, so I generally say "gender identity and sexual orientation". Which lacks a cute acronym, but covers everything at the broad ideological level. Gender identity includes transgender and intersex rights, sexual orientation includes gay/lesbian/bisexual/asexual/polyamorous/etc.

[Invictus ChiKen]

The entire "No On 8" campaign was a disorganized clusterfuck because way too many people assumed that there was no way one of the most progressive and solidly liberal states in the country would pass an anti-gay law like that. "No On 8" was barely even treading water until the Mormon Church started dumping millions into "Yes On 8" attack ads, and even then "No On 8" did very little to fight back.

In particular, "No On 8" assumed that the black community would automatically vote no because it was "obvious" that being pro-Obama and being pro-civil rights went hand in hand. That's why they didn't even RESPOND to the "Yes On 8" ad which falsely portrayed Obama as pro-8; neither "No On 8" nor the Obama campaign ever came out and clearly said that was a lie.

So how the hell does that excuse calling people on there side the N word?

Answer: It doesn't and there is no way you can justify it.

As an honestly ignorant person of the whole GLBT community (I know only 1 bisexual person) shouldn't all the identities be included by a letter? So GLBTTQQIPPUT2AAO? If exclusion is bad, then shouldn't it be written out in its entirity? Or would making the name this long just be insulting?

Of course it would be insulting, something that long clearly looks like a penis which is an insult to the Lesbians!

[JCady]

The entire "No On 8" campaign was a disorganized clusterfuck because way too many people assumed that there was no way one of the most progressive and solidly liberal states in the country would pass an anti-gay law like that. "No On 8" was barely even treading water until the Mormon Church started dumping millions into "Yes On 8" attack ads, and even then "No On 8" did very little to fight back.

In particular, "No On 8" assumed that the black community would automatically vote no because it was "obvious" that being pro-Obama and being pro-civil rights went hand in hand. That's why they didn't even RESPOND to the "Yes On 8" ad which falsely portrayed Obama as pro-8; neither "No On 8" nor the Obama campaign ever came out and clearly said that was a lie.

So how the hell does that excuse calling people on there side the N word?

I wasn't trying to justify it, geez. I was explaining WHY so many black people voted for Prop 8 -- the "No On 8" assumed that the black vote was guaranteed because of Obama, and completely ignored African-Americans in its counter-advertising campaign.