Re-defining the GOP...

This morning as I wandered out to pick up the morning paper, I could not help but notice the prominent photo (by Davis Turner, Getty Images) of the teary-eyed Mark Sanford, Governor of South Carolina and the LA Times large text headline “Another GOP bombshell”.

My initial reaction was an indignant rush of emotions and thoughts about how it is these type people – not necessarily Gov. Sanford, but I speak in general terms about the GOP and their big money sources that have been touting the sanctity of marriage and trampling on minority rights in the process – are the very ones that do the most to undermine it because they can’t seem to keep their pants zipped up around people they are not married to. What ever happened to fiduciary responsibility in our public and elected officials?

I was not given the choice about being transgender (that is simply how God created me – no mistake!) but I do get to think about consequences and choose whether or not I hop in the sack with someone I am not committed to - my personal ethics do give me clarity on this, don’t yours?

I am so tired of Politicians and Preachers pushing the old lies and trying to legislate their brand of morality without holding themselves accountable to it – before they run off to sin. C’mon guys, what good is the "Sanctity of Marriage" and so on if it does not keep you out of someone else’s bed? What does that teach your children?? Be realistic! After all these years of the Moral Majority and Fundamentalist and conservative Evangelical morality – don’t you see? It does not work! No wonder the Republican Party is having so much trouble being relevant these days.

Perhaps it is simply time to be realistic and re-define the acronym GOP to mean Good Ol’ Promiscuity!

Hugs and Blessings,

Eva-Genevieve! Scarborough

Please Support the Inclusive ENDA Bill

This week, Representatives Barney Frank, Tammy Baldwin and Jared Polis introduced an inclusive version of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) which would extend the existing federal law prohibiting employment discrimination to protect people on the basis of sexual orientation AND gender identity. The bill was introduced by a group of bi-partisan Representatives and it is important that you contact your legislator to become a cosponsor as well. Becoming a cosponsor shows that the Representative will stand firm with our community and helps build momentum for the bill’s passage.

In DC, make their phone ring! Call the Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121 and have them connect you to your Representative (based on your zip code). Tell them:

"I am a constituent and I would like you to please tell Representative _______ that I would like him/her to become a cosponsor of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. ENDA would ban discrimination against all lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in the workplace. Can you tell me whether or not Representative _______ has cosponsored the bill?"

Hate Crime Statistics

Here is a link to some stats...

http://www.ncavp.org/common/document_files/Reports/2008%20HV%20Report%20smaller%20file.pdf

Hugs, EG!

Violence and Hatred is Alive and Well in the Land

I find myself in the awkward position of having to retract my original post because it was indeed a hoax.

Here's the word from the source:
This was just posted on Laura's Playground at 11:16am.

"I have pulled the story about Rachel Roo as the story can't be verified. Things just didn't add up. This morning we traced the IP and there is no story in the local paper in that town. A story of this nature would be in the public domain. Roo has been a staff member here for a year and has never made up stories before. " It appears to be a hoax and one that is in very poor taste and hurting the trans community heavily in a time when we are fighting very hard to be understood."

I extend my sincerest apologies for reporting the story without verification. . I Posted it because I thought I knew the person personally and was grief stricken. I was upset over the loss and verification wasn't first on my mind. We were all fooled. I feel like such an idiot.

Laura"

I appologize too for being quick to post, but even so this event still shows how much we are hated and this hoax in itself was an act of terrorism and hate towards us. But don't let that stop you from being out and proud! Being visible consistantly, successful and happy is the only way to counter the ignorance and the hatred that is out there. It means taking a risk and being more careful where you go alone, but if the perps get you to be scared into hiding they have accomplished their goal.

Eva-Genevieve!

Screw Shame

I wrote this yesterday to a friend I met way back in my pseudo-man days but it seems blog-worthy enough - we were talking about how we dealt with feelings of shame related to some of our similar past experiences. If you don't take kindly to women preachers stop here. I have taken out some of the more personal details to “maintain anonymity” and edited it a bit, but I will pick up the thread here…

More importantly though, screw shame! (Sorry 'bout getting preachy but I think I am supposed to right about now). Jesus died and rose again so you and I don't have to bear any shame - that is the glorious gift he gave us in this fleshly lifetime we have. His death is the means to our forgiveness and his rising gives us the authority - His authority - to rise above all that guilt and shame! He took it all down to hell and left it there in the process!!

This does not mean we are not culpable for our actions, because we most certainly are, but the crushing, dysfunctional weight and the self-destructive cycle of shame and bad behavior is broken and healing can begin.

In an old hymn we sang in the Fundamentalist Baptist Church I had been part of for many years, I remember the line "...He breaks the power of cancelled sin; He sets the prisoner free..." That is the forgiveness and authority I refer to set to music. I did not believe it enough to act on it whole heartedly back then, but now I do. My becoming a woman has taught me a lot about the depth of God's love and breadth of His salvation. So (whoever you are reading this), if you have not forgiven yourself, do it and leave that old shame right in the Devil's lap where it belongs. It takes a lot of pressure out of daily life when you do that.

Several years back I was so riddled with shame, and yet a very prominent LA drug rehab program never cured me of that underlying shame any more than they could have cured me of being a man! (Though it was a very helpful program in many other ways and I am alive today because it was). Thank God they did not know about my gender issues – I would have never gotten through that program alive – oh how they would have all torn me apart had they found out because I was so ashamed of my hidden inner woman in those dark days. The day we graduated from that program – that very night after getting home from graduation – I rushed out and tried crack-cocaine for the first time in my life – me, their star graduate who had aced the program and had been asked to speak at our graduation with the Police Chief of Los Angeles. I walked right back into the shame with everything I had because I had not let it all go. The shame of my divorce and the shame of my "failing" my Fundamentalist God (as I believed back then), and the shame I felt over more and more needing to express my female self – all of that just kept me trapped in that endless cycle of shame and self-destructive behavior.

That cycle is now broken by God’s grace! Praise God in the highest!

The hardest part in accepting such Grace is learning not to go back later and pick it up again (the shame that is) - at least it was and sometimes still is for me though, thank God, not to those extremes now. This is how I get a grip on my depression and anxiety problems now – I leave it at the source because I deny its power – I have that God-given right! When the crusty old inner fundamentalist voice says to me: "See! You are still no good, see how shameful you are, see how you fucked up again and see how you let Jesus down?..." I can reply yes, but this same Jesus knows all about it and He lifted me up above it anyway and gives me the power to leave it behind. I can simply walk away from it and not keep going back to the mental/emotional scene-of-the-crime. This is the promised freedom from sin, shame, guilt and this is the new life in Christ that is available!

You can too, like I said, SCREW shame! For God’s sake believe it and walk away from it.

God's love, forgiveness and grace are so much greater than all the shame we can ever take upon ourselves in our lifetime so much greater than our imaginings and our pain too. So once the cycle of shame is broken in our lives, then and only then do we really get to live the cure. I said it right - you don't get a cure, but you do get to live one! When you do decide to live it you get to see your humanity and frailty and the mistakes in life that you and everyone else make just as they are because this is simply what we humans do – make mistakes (we are made this way y’know). You get to Laugh at the situation and that laughter is so healing because you are laughing with God and not actually hating yourself anymore - it isn't destructive laughter but liberating and full of Life. Armed with this confidence you are free to simply move on and be happy again!

Hugs and Blessings,
Eva-Genevieve!

Thanks RAD for setting things right.

Dear Rob, Arnie and Dawn,

Thank you for tastefully and sincerely dealing with what was said previously about Transgender children and doing so in a very educational and informative way.

I just finished listening to today's (Thursday 6-11-09) show on-line (http://www.krxq.net/pages/4572809.php) and truly do appreciate your candor and your efforts to set things right - it was a very good show! I realize that I too overreacted somewhat in my original reaction to your anti-transgender commentary by equating you with extremist terrorists. So now we all have grown up some - that is a very good thing.

Thanks and Regards,
Eva-Genevieve!

Faith Issues Sub-committee forming in the IE

Greetings,

The EQuality Inland Empire (EQIE) Steering Committee is in the process of forming a faith issues sub-committee. As Temporary Chair of this sub-committee I am asking for help in locating Inland Empire faith leaders that would be interested in helping us with LGBT/faith issues.

Our first meeting is this coming Monday June 15th at 6:30 PM (until around 8 PM) at the First Congregational Church of Riverside 3504 Mission Inn (at Lemon). Enter the building by the Lemon Street Parking lot entrance. Faith leaders of all Open and Affirming faiths and congregations - Jewish, Muslim, Mormon, Pagan, Christian and others - are welcome to attend and help us identify goals, issues pertinent to LGBT folk of faith and help build a faith coalition here in the Inland Empire. Among other things we will address how to counter the damaging rhetoric that has run rampant since the Prop 8 campaign stirred the pot. I personally would also like to find ways we all can make our faiths relevant to the LGBT community - especially our youth.

I think it is time we LGBTQI... folk and our allies of faith find our unified voice while maintining our wonderful diversity of people and faith. Once again we can turn the world upside down!

Please pass this along to any faith groups and faith leaders you know. I can be contacted directly.

Thank you all very much.
Hugs and Blessings,
Eva-Genevieve! Scarborough
EvaGenevieve@yahoo.com
Human
Christian
Transgendered
Advocate for Human / Civil-rights and Faith without Prejudice
Chairwoman, First Congregational Church Riverside Mission Board LGBT issues sub committee
Chairwoman, EQIE Faith issues sub-committee
http://livingtransgender.blogspot.com/

Acts of Terrorism

June 2, 2009— In a lengthy May 28 tirade on the Rob, Arnie & Dawn in the Morning radio show heard in Sacramento, California on KRXQ 98.5 FM and Reno, Nevada on KDOT 104.5 FM, hosts Rob Williams and Arnie States verbally attacked transgender children. While discussing a recent story about a transgender child in Omaha, Nebraska and her parents’ decision to support her transition, the two hosts spent more than 30 minutes explicitly promoting child abuse of and making cruel, dehumanizing and defamatory comments toward transgender children.
Among the comments made by the hosts:
ROB WILLIAMS [11:12]: This is a weird person who is demanding attention. A nd when it’s a child, all it takes is a hug, maybe some tough love or anything in between. When your little boy said, ‘Mommy, I want to walk around in a dress.’ You tell them no cause that’s not what boys do. But that’s not what we’re doing in this culture.
ARNIE STATES [13:27]: If my son, God forbid, if my son put on a pair of high heels, I would probably hit him with one of my shoes. I would throw a shoe at him. Because you know what? Boys don’t wear high heels. And in my house, they definitely don’t wear high heels.
ROB WILLIAMS [17:45]: Dawn, they are freaks. They are abnormal. Not because they’re girls trapped in boys bodies but because they have a mental disorder that needs to be somehow gotten out of them. That’s where therapy could help them.
ROB WILLIAMS [18:15]: Or because they were molested. You know a lot of times these transgenders were molested. And you need to work with them on that. The point is you don’t allow the behavior. You cure the cause!
ARNIE STATES [21:30]: You got a boy saying, ‘I wanna wear dresses.’ I’m going to look at him and go, ‘You know what? You’re a little idiot! You little dumbass! Look, you are a boy! Boys don’t wear dresses.’
ARNIE STATES [29:22]: You know, my favorite part about hearing these stories about the kids in high school, who the entire high school caters around, lets the boy wear the dress. I look forward to when they go out into society and society beats them down. And they end up in therapy.To her credit, co-host Dawn Rossi stood up to Williams and States during the segment.Despite her apparent lack of familiarity with transgender issues, Rossi repeatedly defended transgender people and made an on-air apology for her colleagues’ defamatory remarks.

TAKE ACTION NOW!
Please contact KRXQ management in Sacramento, California, where the show is produced and demand that radio show hosts Rob Williams and Arnie States publicly apologize. Call on KRXQ to hold Williams and States accountable for their remarks and establish clear standards to ensure their media platform will not be used to condone or promote violence against any parts of the communities they serve.
John GearyVice President & General Manager
KRXQ-FM
(916) 339-4209
jgeary@entercom.com

Arnie States
On Air Personality
KRXQ-FM
(916) 334-7777
rad@robarnieanddawn.com

Rob Williams
On Air Personality
KRXQ-FM
(916) 334-7777
rwilliams@entercom.com

My commentary (also sent to KRXQ):

As of Friday, Chipotle, Carl's Jr., Sonic, Snapple, Verizon, B of A, Nissan, and Wells Fargo ALL WITHDREW THEIR AD COMMITMENTS from your station(s). I think it is clear that they too think the spreading of hatred and the inciting violence against children is as wrong as it can get. I personally think both of you “jocks” ought to be arrested and tried as promoters and perpetrators of terrorism – it is exactly what you were doing spewing such phobic and terrorist hate. I hope that Dawn Rossi and two new hires get to take over the show while you are fired and hopefully spend some time in Prison thinking about your hate crimes and paying what ought to be the price for your stupidity. (Though I doubt that will happen it is the price tag for acts of terrorism and hate crimes against minors). How dare you abuse the public trust that radio "personalities" share and use your “bully pulpit” to hate and harm these kids – none of whom chose to be the way they are made. None of whom, I’m sure, ever did anything to you or provoked you in some way to promote such evil. It is small minded and willfully ignorant people like you that are are the trouble with our society – anything you don’t understand then becomes a target for derision and for hatred and for violence and you actively promote it in your ranting. I wonder do you go home at night and strap bombs to your children and send them into jihad too?

I am Transgender and a born again Christian of 29 years and an activist for human rights. My becoming a Christian was a choice, the fact I was born with the emotional hardwiring of a Woman in a genetically male body was not. Living in a way that makes sense to me is my God given right. I can tell you that what I am is not, and was not, a choice nor is it something that could it be corrected by kindly or abusive methods or by simply ignoring it or denying it – and all these have been tried many times in my life to no avail. I had vision problems and lung problems in my youth and those could be treated and were, but this has no treatment other than simply being allowed to be fully human according to the way I was created – doing this I am flourishing and doing well in life. These children you would abuse and terrorize deserve to flourish too.

Your spreading of hate and urging of violence (obviously with the approval of the Station management) most certainly is a choice deserving of punishment. I believe you ought to do more than apologize, but actually do something tangible by way of apology to the transgender youth of your community – I would think doing a month’s community service in a transgender youth related charitable organization and donating a full month’s pay to local charity that works with at risk youth or to any number of transgender advocacy groups would be a good token of sincere repentance in this matter.

Every once in a while something gives me some hope that soon there will be much wider acceptance of all types of human in spite of bigotry and acts of terrorism like yours; the support from your former sponsors is one of those things. These are all very big players in media marketing that have pulled their sponsorship - no doubt your stations feel the pinch. I am wondering if it is enough to get you "jocks" fired or cause you to retract what you said publicly and do something tangible by way of apology.

Sincerely,
Eva-Genevieve! Scarborough

Human

Christian

Transgendered
Chairwoman, First Congregational Church (UCC) Riverside Mission Board LGBT sub-committee.

Advocate for Human / Civil-Rights and Faith without Prejudice

http://livingtransgender.blogspot.com/

Life and Death in California

Hey everyone – this is something that is urgent – life and death Urgent!
Please don’t sit by silent on this and let this evil come to pass…

The included sample letter that you can send to your legislators tells pretty much the whole story if you are as yet unaware. Please use this sample letter, courtesy of Equality California, or a similar one to tell your legislators that these cuts must be avoided at all cost.

Cutting these critical life saving services in California can’t be allowed. This isn’t politics or simple economics but life and death. Whether you know it or not this will affect many people you know. Loved ones, friends, people you work with, attend Church with and that live in your neighborhoods – some of them will die if we don’t take action.

Sample Letter:

Re: Opposition to Proposed HIV/AIDS Budget Cuts
Dear [Legislator]:
Please oppose the proposed budget cuts to public health care programs for low-income Californians living with HIV/AIDS.
The current proposal to cut $55.5 million General Fund (GF) in Fiscal Year (FY) 2009 – 2010 and $58.9 million GF in FY 2010 – 2011, as well as $24.6 million GF in HIV Prevention and Education services, would devastate life-saving programs that serve low-income Californians living with and at risk for HIV/AIDS, including many members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community who are still disproportionately impacted by the disease.
The proposed cuts to the HIV Prevention and Education budget will effectively end HIV prevention and education efforts throughout many local health jurisdictions in California . These proposals are inhumane, shortsighted, and threaten individual and public health.
The cuts jeopardize California ’s ability to deliver life-saving medications to low income people with HIV who cannot otherwise afford them. ADAP provides HIV treatment for nearly 35,000 low-income Californians. The additional cuts to the State HIV budget will also cripple already under-funded local programs.
The health of 150,000 Californians living with HIV as well as the lives of those at risk of infection would be seriously endangered by these proposed cuts.
I strongly urge the Legislature to consider other mechanisms to address the state’s structural deficit in order to preserve lifesaving HIV programs.
Sincerely,
(Sender’s name)

Other things you can do:

Go to http://www.eqca.org/ and click on “Action Center”. There you can electronically send a message to the California Budget committee members on this issue. There are links and info about other issues too.

Attend and participate:
Converge on the Capitol, Sacramento
HIV/AIDS Statewide Rally
Wednesday, June 10
1:30 to 3 p.m.

Whatever you do, please don’t do nothing!
"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good [people] do nothing." Edmund Burke.

Hugs and Blessings,
Eva-Genevieve! Scarborough
EvaGenevieve@yahoo.com

Human
Christian
Transgendered
Advocate for Human / Civil-Rights and Faith without Prejudice
http://livingtransgender.blogspot.com/