According to “Ex-gay watch”, not only has Richard Cohen been disowned by all the “ex-gay” organizations, but he was kicked out of the American Counseling Association, which is apparently why he practices without a license.
cnn youtube democratic debate question 8.
Do you support gay marriage?
Hitting the local college in Edmonton to find out what people thought about the conservative government bringing the same-sex marriage debate back into the house of commons. The right to marry was given to same-sex couples last year under the liberal government, now the newly elected conservative government whats to bring it back to the house for a possible new vote.
This clip shows off some interesting points Mr. Maher made regarding gay marriage. Priceless quotes from *THE MAN* can be heard here!
Rep. Barney Frank and Bill Maher talk about Larry Craig, Barney’s gaydar and gay hypocrites in the GOP. I am not a fan of the Gay Republican’s, and I have seen their side in the Documentary of the same name. I feel Bill is right on, and so is the Democratic Rep in this clip. I do highly disagree with what Bill calls 911 Truth people, but, he has always been for Gay Rights. Gay, and Republican do not go together! Gay, and Democrat, or Independent, now that sounds excellent! But, hey, I may just be biased, as I am an Extreme Liberal.
Here is what the different colors of the GBLTS Rainbow means…
hot pink for sex,
red for life,
orange for healing,
yellow for sun,
green for serenity with nature,
turquoise for art,
indigo for harmony, and
violet for spirit.
I have been really frustrated of late, and have some stuff to get off of my chest. This note is going to be pretty interesting to those with an open mind, and infuriating for those with closed minds. It will challenge some peoples views.
When one hears the words “Homophobic,” and “BiPhobic” we automatically jump to the conclusion it means name calling, or, wanting to physically harm, BUT, this is NOT the case. The dictionary term for “Homophobic” is as follows;
“Homophobia (from Greek ?µ? homo(sexual), “same, equal” + f?ß?a (phobia), “fear”) is a non-scientific term[3][4] used to describe the fear of, aversion to, or discrimination against homosexuality or homosexuals.[5][6] It can also mean hatred, hostility, disapproval of, or prejudice towards homosexuals, or homosexual behavior or cultures.[7] Homophobic is the adjective form of this term used to describe the qualities of these characteristics while homophobe is the noun form given as a title to individuals with “homophobic” characteristics.
“An irrational fear or intolerance of homosexuality, or behavior that is perceived to uphold and support traditional gender role expectations. The prevalent assumption in Western society is that heterosexuality is the only acceptable sexual orientation. In sport, homophobia is expressed in ways ranging from telling jokes directed against homosexual activity, through harassment to physical violence against homosexual sportspeople.”
“Fear of homosexuality or of becoming homosexual.”
“……Homophobia manifests in different forms, and a number of different types have been postulated, among which are internalized homophobia, social homophobia, emotional homophobia, rationalized homophobia, and others.”
“Internalized homophobia (or ego-dystonic homophobia) refers to homophobia as a prejudice carried by individuals against homosexual manifestations in themselves and others. It causes severe discomfort with or disapproval of one’s own sexual orientation.
Such a situation may cause extreme repression of homosexual desires.[28] In other cases, a conscious internal struggle may occur for some time, often pitting deeply held religious or social beliefs against strong sexual and emotional desires. This discordance often causes clinical depression, and the unusually high suicide rate among gay teenagers (up to 30% of non-heterosexual youth attempt suicide) has been attributed to this phenomenon.[29]
The label of internalized homophobia is applied to conscious or unconscious behaviors which an observer feels the need to promote or conform to the expectations of heteronormativity or heterosexism. This might include making assumptions about the gender of a person’s romantic partner, or about gender roles.”
….. And Finally…..
“Fear of being identified as gay, an individual’s fear of being identified as gay. When expressing homophobic viewpoints and emotions, the individual who does so is not only expressing his thoughts as to gay people, but also actively attempting to distance himself from this category and attributed social status. Therefore, by distancing him or herself from the people in question, he/she is reaffirming his/her role as a heterosexual, within heteronormativity, and contributing to the avoidance of his/her potential labeling and consequent treatment as a gay person.”
As one can see the Definition for Homophobia is NOT JUST threats, physical abuse, or even comments. The TRUE Definition of Homophobia is not fully accepting, whether it be in oneself or others, that someone is BORN Gay/Bi, and did not chose to be such. When you are complaining about someone being PROUD at all times that they are alive, and living, and THUS being Homosexual/Bisexual, and thus not going away or going to pretend to be something they are not than YOU ARE being Homophobic.
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OK, that takes care of Homophobia, time for Bi-Phobia, which is present in not ONLY the Heterosexual world, but, alas also in the GLBTS Community. The B is not always liked, or understood by the GB, and neither is the T.
The True Definition Of Bi-Phobia is as follows….
“Biphobia is a term used to describe the fear of, aversion to, or discrimination against bisexuality or LGBT people (or those perceived to be) who are bisexual or perceived to be bisexual. It can also mean hatred, hostility, disapproval of, or prejudice towards LGBT people, sexual behavior, or cultures. Biphobic is the adjective form of this term used to describe the qualities of these characteristics while the less common biophobe is the noun form given as a title to individuals with “biphobic” characteristics. It need not include or exclude homophobia or heterophobia, because there are stereotypes that are specific to bisexuals.[1]
Bisexual stereotypes include, but are not limited to: promiscuity, polygamy, living the swinging lifestyle, and being “confused” or “greedy”. [2] In some cases, bisexuals are accused of bringing sexually transmitted diseases into the heterosexual community or into the LGBT community. A related stereotype is one in which a bisexual person is presumed to be willing to have sex with just about anyone. This stereotype leads to unwanted attention of a sexual nature directed at bisexual females by swingers and heterosexual males while often stereotyping bisexual males as walking AIDS risks.
Often, however, heterosexuals will add more stereotypes based on homophobia. Homophobes may think that bisexuals are gender nonconformist. Homosexual people will sometimes experience bisexuals as maintaining privilege and collaborating with the homophobes while simultaneously enjoying the LGBT lifestyle. Some consider the belief that people are either heterosexual or homosexual, and thus that bisexuality does not truly exist, to be biphobic.[3]
One common motive for negative attitudes toward bisexuality may be fear for straight males and straight females that their husbands/boyfriends and wives/girlfriends may divorce them or break up with them for members of the same sex. The same fears exists among gay people as well. For lesbians it may be the fear that a bisexual woman will leave a woman for a man; and vice versa with gay males fearing that they would be dumped for a woman. The heterosexual male is seen as having an unfair systemic advantage both due to sexism and due to homophobia. Bisexual persons may also be the target of homophobia from those who consider only heterosexuality appropriate.
Some radical lesbians think that bisexual women are giving in to patriarchy. Others say that people against bisexuals are insecure about their sexuality themselves, similarly to homophobia. It is fair to note many anti-bisexuals are also homophobic, while maintaining there are only heterosexual and homosexual as sexual preferences, and a common stereotype is that female bisexuals are attention seeking heterosexuals, while male ones are just self-denying homosexuals too afraid to acknowledge their true orientation.”
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Yep, there is lots of fear out there, and in many forms for people like me, and a lot of my friends. Why though? I mean, COME ON GET A LIFE FOLKS! I was born one of two ways, and neither is Heterosexual. I am either Bisexual which includes a stronger Homosexual side, or fully Homosexual. It was the way I, and MANY people are born, and will continue to be born. We deserve to be able to walk with you, talk with you, be friends, and/or for those Homosexuals/Heterosexual Females scared of Bi’s to take action on our possible sexual attractions. We deserve everything the Heterosexuals have gotten for decades, and YEAH THAT INCLUDES MARRIAGE!
We also deserve More Respect from those in the G/L community, as if we are Bi, we were born that way And Will Not Pick a Side if we are Truely In Love! If I am Bi, of which there is a possibility, I deserve to NOT be Called “Greedy,” and, frowned upon by GL people, or The Straight people of this world!
On the same note let us turn up the Red Liberal Heat a bit even more, and go on to Trans-Phobia. No reason to leave my fellow GBLT individuals out of the loop.
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The Dictionary term for Transphobia is as follows…..
“Transphobia (or less commonly, transprejudice) refers to discrimination against transsexuality and transsexual or transgender people, based on the expression of their internal gender identity (see Phobia - terms indicating prejudice or class discrimination). Whether intentional or not, transphobia can have severe consequences for the object of the negative attitude. Many transpeople also experience homophobia from people who incorrectly associate the medically recognised condition of gender identity disorder as a form of homosexuality (see Homosexuality and Transgender).[1]
Like other forms of discrimination such as homophobia, the discriminatory or intolerant behaviour can be direct (such as harassment, assault, or murder) or indirect (such as refusing to take steps to ensure that transgender people are treated in the same way as non-transgendered people.) However, direct forms of transphobia can manifest themselves in ways that are not related to violence.
There are many recorded examples of transphobia in many of its different forms and manifestations throughout society. Some instances clearly involve violence and extreme malice, while others involve little more than a lack of understanding or experience of the condition sometimes involving unconscious predisposition based upon various religious edicts or social conventions.
Sometimes homeless shelters have been guilty of discriminating against transwomen, refusing, for example, admission to women’s areas and forcing them to sleep and bathe in the presence of men[citation needed]. This situation has been improving in some areas, however. For example, on February 8, 2006, New York City’s Department of Homeless Services announced an overhaul of its housing policy with the goal of specifically ending discrimination against transgendered people in its shelters.[2]
Some noted victims of transphobia related violent crime include Brandon Teena, Gwen Araujo, Fred Martinez, Nizah Morris and Lauren Harries.
One example of this is the case of Tyra Hunter. Ms. Hunter was involved in an automobile accident, and when rescue workers discovered she was transgender, they backed away and stopped administering treatment. She later died in hospital.[3]
Transgender people depend largely on the medical profession to receive not only hormone replacement therapy and eventually sex reassignment surgery, but also other vital care. Often it can be difficult for gender patients to receive proper health care and treatment, because medical gatekeepers who are transphobic (or who misunderstand the nature of gender identity disorder) will refuse to administer necessary treatment; in at least one case that included the refusal to treat Robert Eads, a transman, for ovarian cancer, of which he subsequently died.[4][5]
Transphobia can also manifest itself in the workplace. Sometimes transexuals lose their jobs when they begin the transition. Some say discrimination is so rife it’s virtually impossible to find a job at all to begin with.[6].
News stories from the San Francisco Chronicle and Associated Press have cited a 1999 study by the San Francisco Department of Public Health finding a 70 percent unemployment rate amongst the city’s transgendered. On February 18, 1999, the San Francisco Department of Public Health issued the results of a 1997 survey of 392 MTF (male-to-female) and 123 FTM (female-to-male) transgendered people, showing amongst other things that only 40 percent of those MTF transgendered people surveyed had earned money from full or part-time employment over the preceding six months’ period. For FTMs, the equivalent statistic was 81 percent. The survey also found that 46 percent of MTFs and 57 percent of FTMs reported employment discrimination.[7]
In the hiring process, discrimination may be either open or covert, with employers finding other ostensible reasons not to hire a candidate or just not informing prospective employees at all as to why they are not being hired. Additionally, when an employer fires or otherwise discriminates against a transgendered employee, it may be a “mixed motive” case, with the employer openly citing obvious wrongdoing, job performance issues or the like (such as excessive tardiness, for example) while keeping silent in regards to transphobia (which nevertheless may be all too real). [8]
Employment discrimination on the basis of gender identity and expression, or the like, is illegal in a growing number of U.S. cities, towns and states. Such discrimination might be outlawed by specific legislation (as it is in the states of California, Illinois, Maine, Minnesota, New Mexico and Washington state) or city ordinances; additionally, it is covered by case law in some other states. (For example, Massachusetts is covered by cases such as Lie vs. Sky Publishing Co. and Jette vs. Honey Farms.) Several other states and cities prohibit such discrimination in public employment. The United Kingdom has also legislated against employment discrimination on the grounds of gender identity. Sometimes, however, employers discriminate against the transgendered in spite of such legal protections.[8]
There is at least one high-profile employment-related court case unfavorable to the transgendered. In 2000, the Southern U.S. grocery chain Winn-Dixie fired longtime employee Peter Oiler, despite a history of repeatedly earning raises and promotions, after management learned that the married, heterosexual truck driver occasionally cross-dressed off-the-job. Management argued that this hurt Winn-Dixie’s corporate image. The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit against Winn-Dixie on behalf of Oiler but a judge dismissed it. The case, however, led to a picket of the company’s Jacksonville, Fla., headquarters and a boycott against the company. One now-defunct website, www.shameonwinndixie.org, claimed it was “the largest-ever public demonstration against gender-based bigotry.” [9]
Sometimes transgendered people facing employment discrimination turn to sex work to survive, arguably placing them at additional risk of such things as contracting sexually transmitted-diseases such as HIV; enduring workplace violence; and encountering troubles with the law, including arrest and criminal prosecution[7]
Transprejudice
Transprejudice is a similar term to transphobia, and refers to the negative valuing, stereotyping and discriminatory treatment of individuals whose appearance and/or identity does not conform to the current social expectations or conventional conceptions of gender. [10]
Transprejudice may be manifested in ways similar to other prejudicial beliefs, such as homophobia or sexual prejudice. As Blumenfeld (1992) suggests, homophobia functions on four distinct yet-interrelated levels: personal, interpersonal, institutional, and cultural (also referred to as collective or societal).[11] Adapting Blumenfeld’s (1992) framework for use with transprejudice, personal transprejudice would refer to an individual’s belief system (prejudices) about TG/TS individuals. Interpersonal transprejudice would be evident when a personal prejudice transforms into discriminatory behavior. Institutional transprejudice would be seen in the ways in which government, business, religious, educational, and professional organizations (e.g., the medical and psychiatric community) systematically discriminate against TG/TS individuals. Finally, cultural transprejudice would refer to the social cognition that influences attitudes toward TG/TS persons.
Transphobia in the gay and lesbian community
Some in the gay community are uncomfortable with transgender individuals. For example, transwomen (male-to-female transgender and transsexual people) are sometimes denied entry to women’s spaces, and the explanations given for such denials betray a degree of transphobia. (The Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival, for instance, has caused much debate for limiting its attendance to “womyn-born womyn”.)[12] Kay Brown of Transhistory.net (“Transsexual, Transgender and Intersex History”) has set forth a long chronology of the ejection of those whom we now know as “transgendered” from gay organizations starting in the 1970s[13].
While many gays and lesbians feel that “transgender” is simply a name for a part of their own community (i.e. the LGBT community), others actively reject the idea that transgenders are part of their community, seeing them as entirely separate and distinct. Some feel that bisexuality and transgenderism are detrimental to the social and political acceptance of gays and lesbians. This curious phenomenon has been called “internalized homophobia” by some, meaning an irrational fear and dislike of other homosexuals. [citation needed]See Fone, B.R.S. (2000). Homophobia. New York: Metropolital Books; Sears, J.T., and Williams, W.L. (1997). Overcoming Heterosexism and Homophobia. New York: Columbia University Press) This presumes that transgender people are, in fact, “homosexuals,” an equation which is often hotly debated, but with little real meaning due to the nature of the differences between gender and sexuality - for example, if a transwoman is attracted only to other women, then she is either lesbian by nature of being a woman, or is otherwise a heterosexual man.
The nature of the terms “Man” and “Woman” also become unclear in a similar way under this philosophy, and the only real recourse is to accept that the mind and feeling of a person is the only thing that gives that person identity, and so a person that has a female identity and mind is indeed a woman, as agreed by much legislation in Europe enabling transsexual people to have the sex recorded on their birth certificates amended accordingly[14]. In this light, it becomes clear that in at least a categorical sense, transgendered people should only be accepted in the Gay and Lesbian community if they themselves self-identify as gay or lesbian as any other homosexual person does, and the blanket assumption on the part of some gay and lesbian people on the nature of those transgendered people who are in their LGB community with a view to dis-inclusion constitutes an issue of transphobia[13]. The implacability of this question has been overcome by the rise in the 1990’s of Queer Theory and the Queer community, which defines “queer” as embracing all variants of sexual identity, sexual desire, and sexual acts that fall outside normative definitions of heterosexuality; thus a heterosexual man or woman as well as a transgendered person of either sex can be included in the category of queer through their own choice.
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As noted in the above HUGE blurb, there is way too much discrimination against Transgendered, and in fact, my spell checker even marked Trasngender and not being a true word. However, as much as it is horrible for Transgender people are being discriminated, it is indeed the WHOLE of the GBLT community that is STILL AS I TYPE IN 2008 being discriminated against. In fact, even A Sexual people are being Discriminated against, despite being able to have a FULL Relationship TOTALLY ABSENT of Sex, if the other person involved is grossed out by it.
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Why is it that so many people hate or have an Unneeded fear of us? We are human beings like straight people are, and we do not hurt anyone. I would never discriminate against straight people, We were born differently, and I think people need to just get used to it!
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WE’RE QUEER/ASEXUAL/TRANSGENDERED/BI, AND WE’RE HERE, AND HAVE ALWAYS BEEN HERE, BUT, SILENCED OR HIDDEN. GET WITH THE YEAR 2008, AND GROW UP! WE’RE QUEER/ASEXUAL/TRANSGENDERED/BI, AND WE’RE HERE, AND HAVE ALWAYS BEEN HERE, SO, ACCEPT IT OR FUCK OFF!
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HOW DOES WHO WE SLEEP WITH OR FALL FOR HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH US AS PEOPLE, ALL THOSE PHOBES OUT THERE IN THIS WORLD GROW THE FUCK UP!
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P.S: TO THE LABEL GIVERS OF THIS HUMAN RACE, YOU CAN GO JUMP OFF A LAKE TOO. WE ARE HUMAN NOT JARS, QUITE GIVING PEOPLE LABELS TO JUST ANYONE YOU SEE FIT TO LABEL IT IS NOT YOUR JOB TO LABEL PEOPLE, AND IT IS YOUR JOB TO LIVE IN PEACE WITH US!
An excellent documentary about the families of the victims of 9/11 and their fight to uncover and expose the truth about what happened that day.
Canadian NDP Leader Jack Layton did a book signing in Calgary for his new book “Homelessness” Nathan Moulton from Calgary 9/11 Truth took this opportunity to ask Jack about the North American Union and 911 Truth. It turns out Jack and the party are also working on STOPPING the North American Union!
