Idenity Reports (1989) and One in Ten (1986). Click through to read the reports.

Originally published as an op-ed in the Anchorage Press on Thursday, January 27, 2011. Crossposted on Bent Alaska.

In the 1980s, I was part of two major research efforts conducted by Identity, Inc. to document sexual orientation bias in Alaska. One in 10: A Profile of Alaska’s Lesbian & Gay Community, published in 1986, reported on the results of a statewide survey of 734 lesbian, gay, and bisexual Alaskans. Identity Reports: Sexual Orientation Bias in Alaska, published in 1989, included three papers, including “Closed Doors,” a survey of Anchorage employers and landlords; and “Prima Facie,” which documented 84 actual cases of of violence, harassment, and discrimination due to sexual orientation bias. (Copies of both reports are available on the Internet at http://www.henkimaa.com/identity/.) Some of our findings:

Of the 734 respondents to One in 10:

• 61% reported being victimized by violence and harassment while in Alaska because of their sexual orientation (ranging from verbal abuse/harassment, reported by 58%, to physical violence, 11%, and sexual assault, 5%);
• 39% reported discrimination in employment, housing, and loans/credit; and
• 33% reported discrimination from services and institutions.

From the “Closed Doors” component of Identity Reports:

• 31% of the 191 Anchorage employers in the survey said they would not hire or promote or would fire someone they had reason to believe was homosexual.
• 20% of the 178 Anchorage landlords in the survey said they would not rent to or would evict someone they had reason to believe was homosexual.

From the “Prima Facie” component of Identity Reports:

• 84 case histories of antigay bias, discrimination, harassment, or violence (including three murders) were documented involving 30 men and 21 women. 64 of these cases took place in Anchorage.
• A former intake investigator with the Alaska Human Rights Commission found that 32 of 42 discrimination cases based on personal testimony would “definitely” be jurisdictional under state human rights law if it included protection from discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. (That is, the commission would investigate them if complaints were made.)
• Victims were predominately gay men or lesbians, but also included heterosexuals who were erroneously assumed to be gay or lesbian.

On June 16, 2009, I testified about these findings before the Anchorage Assembly during public hearings on Anchorage Ordinance 64, which would have added sexual orientation and gender identity to the Municipality of Anchorage’s equal rights code. I also provided every member of the Anchorage Assembly with CDs containing the full reports, as well as photocopies of the “Prima Facie” report.

In spite of this evidence, one of the chief arguments used in 2009 by opponents of equal rights was that there was no evidence of discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered (LGBT) people. Mayor Dan Sullivan echoed those arguments when, less than a week after the Anchorage Assembly passed AO-64 by a vote of 7 to 4, he vetoed the measure, claiming that “there is clearly a lack of quantifiable evidence necessitating this ordinance.” And so for the third time in 35 years, the Anchorage Assembly in 2009 passed an ordinance that provided at least some equal rights under the law for LGBT residents, only for those rights to be almost immediately stripped away again. (The other instances were in 1975–76 and 1992–93.)

But of course, the evidence of One in Ten and Identity Reports was two decades old, so Mayor Sullivan and ordinance opponents found it easy to ignore. But they found it just as easy to close their ears to the public testimony of a number of Anchorage LGBT residents who stepped forward during the summer of 2009 to testify to very recent experiences of discrimination and bias — even after one opponent openly testified to the Assembly that he’d once beaten a gay man so badly that he put him in the hospital. Public testimony about discrimination, no matter how recent, was downplayed as “just anecdotal.”

Alaska LGBT Community Survey. Click through to take the Anchorage LGBT Discrimination Survey.

And so we come to 2011 and the Anchorage LGBT Discrimination Survey, now in progress: the first effort since the late 1980s to compile rigorous data about the incidence of sexual orientation bias and discrimination in Anchorage — and the first effort ever to document Anchorage or Alaska-specific data about discrimination and bias on the basis of gender identity.

The Anchorage LGBT Discrimination Survey is a collaborative project of the Alaska LGBT community and a coalition of Alaska organizations which serve the LGBT community, including Identity, Inc., the Alaskan AIDS Assistance Association (4-As), Alaskans Together for Equality, Equality Works, and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Alaska. Our survey questionnaire and overall research project were designed with the expert assistance of Dr. Brad Myrstol and Khristy Parker of the Justice Center at University of Alaska Anchorage. In the future, we plan to conduct a second and far more expansive statewide survey, which will survey LGBT Alaskans statewide not only about their experience of discrimination and bias, but also a full range of other questions of concerns to LGBT Alaskans and their friends and allies.

In the meantime, online surveys are at our project website, http://alaskacommunity.org/, and on the ACLU of Alaska website at http://www.akclu.org/ by clicking the button marked “LGBT Survey.” To obtain a PIN number to access the online survey, or to receive a printed version of the survey, contact Shelby Carpenter of the ACLU of Alaska at (907) 263-2006 or at scarpenter@akclu.org. Survey data collection will continue until February 28, 2011.

We invite the participation of all members of the LGBT community in this important and confidential survey, and we welcome the assistance of our non-LGBT friends and allies in getting the word out.

Melissa S. (Mel) Green was principal writer of One in Ten: A Profile of Alaska’s Lesbian & Gay Community (1986) and coauthor with Jay K. Brause of Identity Reports: Sexual Orientation Bias in Alaska (1989). She is a founding member of the Alaska LGBT Community Survey Task Force.

Related posts:

1. Announcing the Alaska LGBT Community Survey
2. Identity Reports & One in Ten — now online!
3. Alaska LGBT Community Survey: Who we are & where we’re at

Identity Reports (1989) and One in 10 (1986)

In the 1980s, the nonprofit organization Identity, Inc. conducted two major research efforts to profile Alaska’s lesbian/gay/bisexual community and to document sexual orientation bias in Alaska.

One in Ten: A Profile of Alaska’s Lesbian & Gay Community (1986) provided the first statewide portrait of Alaska’s lesbian and gay (and to some extent bisexual) population, describing our experiences of coming out, of discrimination, our physical and emotional health, religious and political affiliations, demographic characteristics, and a general needs assessment.  Identity Reports: Sexual Orientation Bias in Alaska (1989) focused on discrimination and bias, documenting 84 actual instances of antigay bias, discrimination, harassment, or violence (including three murders) around the state, as well as the positive willingness of 20% of landlords and 31% of employers in the Anchorage area to discriminate against persons who were — or were perceived to be — gay or lesbian.

A lot has changed in the two-and-a-half decades since.  There’s a lot more live-and-let-live, a lot more acceptance of lesbians and gays.  Yet the continuing legacy of antigay prejudice and discrimination persists. Arguably, prejudice against transfolk is even more virulent — often even within our own community.

One of the chief arguments used by opponents of last year’s Anchorage Ordinance 64 — which would have added sexual orientation and gender identity to the Municipality of Anchorage’s equal rights code — was that there was no evidence of discrimination against LGBT people.  This claim was made in spite of the weight of evidence provided in One in Ten and Identity Reports.  But of course, that evidence was two decades old, so ordinance opponents found it easy to ignore; and they found it just as easy to close their ears to the public testimony of Anchorage LGBT residents who stepped forward to testify to very recent experiences of discrimination and bias — even as one opponent openly told the Assembly that he’d once beaten a gay man so badly that he put him in the hospital.

And so — we’ve decided to bring One in Ten up-to-date by conducting a new statewide survey — the Alaska LGBT Community Survey.  Like its predecessor, the Alaska LGBT Community Survey aims to create a profile of our community in all its diversity and with all its diverse concerns; and as we did in 1985-86, we’ll use the survey as vehicle to solicit case histories to document our community’s continuing experiences with discrimination, harassment, and violence.  Unlike One in Ten, the Alaska LGBT Community Survey will include transfolk as well as gay, lesbian, and bisexual folk, in the design of the survey questionnaire as well as in filling it out.

We’re in a very early stage right now.  We just made the firm commitment to do this last week! But we wanted to tell you about it right away.

We aim to have at least initial results of our survey by April 2011. For more and continuing information as we go along:

• subscribe to our blog at alaskacommunity.org;
• “like” our Facebook page;
• follow @alaskacommunity on Twitter; or
• do all three!

We’ll also doing our best to keep you updated through our regular LGBT news channels such as Bent Alaska, TransAlaska Pipeline, Grrlzlist, the Alaska GLBT News maillist, and — well, yeah, my own blog, Henkimaa.

Stay tuned!

— Melissa S. (Mel) Green

Learn more about Identity Reports and One in Ten.

Related posts:

1. Alaska LGBT Community Survey: Who we are & where we’re at
2. Anchorage’s LGBT Discrimination Survey
3. Alaska LGBT Community Survey: It’s not only about discrimination

And so I begin the new year by coming out of a period of silence.

A silence, to be sure, less profound than the one I inhabited this time last year.  And for different reasons.  In the last month or so, mainly I’ve just needed a break.

1. The cave

But on New Year’s Day 2009, I was living in a kind of emotional cave, with no desire or wherewithal to communicate with anyone outside my day-to-day life except immediate family.  Especially my dad, who I’d learned just a couple of weeks before had been diagnosed with a terminal lymphoma. That news came on top of stuff I’d already been struggling with for some months, after my then-partner, Rozz who is now Ptery, made the decision while in school in Seattle to transition as a female-to-male (FTM) transsexual, & made accompanying decisions that have essentially ended our partnership as-it-was.

Thus, the cave, about which I wrote on April 2, a few days after coming out of it,

I seem to be have come out of the cave now. Not just feeling better — I’ve felt better a number of times (only to then go back into the grey again) — but actually able & willing to communicate. Maybe it was that I’m finally accepting the inevitable with my partner. Maybe it was finally getting the plane tickets bought to fly down in late April to see my dad. Maybe it was taking enough 5-HTP to keep the serotonin cooking in my brain. Maybe it’s the light coming into the days after a looooooong winter. Maybe it’s all just been perimenopause. Anyway… seems I’m back in the world again.

Now, before I go on, let me explain: this post isn’t just about the history of what I did or experienced in 2009: it’s also about what it meant.  Or, better yet, the meanings I’ve made of it — because that’s what it’s all about, for me — the story, the stories each of us make of our lives.  And this is my blog, of course, so this is my damn story.

And the story of coming out of the cave also has these meanings attached to it:

(1) The cave itself became a new term, describing a new form, of that rather large aspect of my life popularly known as depression (or, sometimes, despair): along with the grey, along with the pit, along with limbo — all of which are described in my late 2006 post The grey — the newly-discovered environment of the cave can include any one of the first three, or exclude all of them; it is chiefly characterized by that deep inability & lack of motivation to communicate.  Big whooptie, a new term — but I do find the language useful in understanding myself around this stuff.  Since, hey, halfway through my life give-or-take, I don’t see the depression/despair gunk suddenly evaporating from my life.  It’s a part of who I am.  I’m just lots better at handling it than before, & part of that is in refining my understanding of how it works in me.

(2) If I were to mark the exact date the cave walls dissolved around me, it would probably be March 30, 2009, which coincided with some important phone calls with Ptery, & also with my brother Mark & I buying our tickets to Spokane to see our dad for what we both understood would probably be the last time this side of our own deaths.  And also on that day, I wrote a lengthy post in memorial to Nicholas Hughes, a fisheries biologist formerly at University of Alaska Fairbanks who had taken his own life the previous week.  I hadn’t known him, but he was the son of the poets Sylvia Plath & Ted Hughes, & Plath especially had been an significant figure in my life.  Not for the right reasons, initially — but the post explains that: it was my effort to honor Mr. Hughes not as mere adjunct to his famous parents’ biographies — as many of the news accounts of his death seemed to view him — but for who he himself was & for what he brought to all the people in his life, who were mourning him that day.

(3) My dad knew I’d been having a hard time. He was at peace with his own approaching death, & wanted us to be too.  But beyond that, he wanted our happiness.  He was so glad when he heard I’d come out of the cave.  That was one of the very best things about it.

2. Lima beans against WAR

Wow, after the Summer of Hate experienced by the Anchorage LGBT & allied community over Anchorage Ordinance 2009-64, one almost forgets its political prelude, when then-Gov. Sarah Palin named Wayne Anthony Ross — widely known by his license-plate acronym as WAR — to succeed the disgraced Talis Colberg as Alaska’s Attorney General.  Alaska’s top LGBT blog Bent Alaska informs us that its post about WAR, “Palin’s AG Pick Called Gays “Degenerates” (3/29/09), was one of its two 2009 posts to go viral — & that was even before he compared gays to lima beans, a vegetable that he “hates” but still claimed he could represent if he were, say, the lawyer for “United Vegetable Growers.”  We lima beans were, needless to say, not favorably impressed.

Ross also had a history of biased & even misogynistic attitudes in relation to domestic violence, sexual assault, & violence against women; hostility to Alaska Native sovereignty & subsistence rights; a mediocre reputation as a practitioner of law amongst his fellow members of the Alaska Bar Association; & a pretty shaky attitude about executive branch ethics.  Bad news all around: it motivated me to spend a considerable amount of time & energy researching him, listening to legislative confirmation hearings, & writing a very long letter to legislators, which I posted on my blog — thus embarking upon a part-time career as an occasional political blogger.  I wrote a few other posts about WAR, & commented on other sites’ coverage of him (especially Bent Alaska), & celebrated with most of the rest of Alaska when the Alaska Legislature rejected him by a vote of 23 yeas to 35 nays — an unprecedented rejection of a governor’s cabinet pick.

It took a day or two for the Alaska Department of Law to remove WAR from its website. This screenshot was taken on April 16. The red X is mine.

3. Dad

I flew to Spokane with my brother Mark in late April to visit Dad.  We also saw my sister Mer & brother-in-law Julius, with whom my Dad lived, and my brother Dave drove over from Montana.  Ptery hitchhiked up, at my request, so I got to see him too.

Dad was so happy to have all of us there. He had a lot of energy too, considering how ill he was; but near the end, as we began to return to our homes, he took a turn for the worse, as if he’d been holding to life so that he could see us all before he left us to be with Mom.  She had died in November 2005.

I took this picture during that trip: Dad telling one of his wonderful stories about growing up in the lumber camps of eastern Oregon in the 1920s where Grandpa Claude ran locomotives on the Sumpter Valley Railroad for the Oregon Lumber Company; or about the bootleg operation he & his pals in the Army Air Corps had in England during WWII; or about how he met my mom when he was looking for a job, & guy at Ellingson Lumber Company suggested he head to Izee because the camp cook there had two beautiful daughters. It was the younger of the two daughters, my Auntie Pat, who actually introduced my parents after Dad gave her a ride into John Day, where Mom was then working.

That photo on the wall behind Dad was his favorite picture of Mom, taken by a professional photographer shortly before they met. When I look at this photo, I feel his yearning to be with her again.

I last saw him on April 29.  He died not quite a month later, on May 27.  My sister was with him.

I’ve been at peace about Dad’s death almost from the beginning, partly because the peace he himself had about it put me at peace, & partly because of what for lack of better words I will call the messages that came, three of them — two of them to other family members, & the last one to me. My message was from my mother, in the form of sunflowers.  It told me that Dad was with her, & they are both okay.

On July 12, as many family members as could make it, including me & my sister & brothers, all gathered together in Spokane to remember Mom & Dad & to celebrate all that they gave us.

I love you, Mom & Dad.

4. Anchorage Ordinance 2009-64

The Anchorage equal rights ordinance AO 2009-64 was introduced in the Anchorage Assembly on May 12, & thus was my career as an occasional political blogger made much less occasional.

AO 64 would have added sexual orientation and gender identity to the list of personal characteristics in Title 5, Anchorage’s equal rights code, which prohibits discrimination based on those characteristics in employment, housing, financial practices, education, and practices of the Municipality of Anchorage. The summer of 2009 in Anchorage featured a protracted period of public testimony at the Anchorage Assembly, with accompanying sign-waving and letter-writing both by ordinance supporters and those who opposed equal rights — led in particular by Jerry Prevo of the Anchorage Baptist Temple, who used “perverted” and other hate-terms to describe LGBT people, hence the name given the summer by commentator at the Anchorage Press: the Summer of Hate.

Identity Reports (1989) and One in 10 (1986)

From May to September, I wrote in the area of 60 posts about the ordinance, including a number that delved into the background & prevarications of its most vociferous opponent, Jerry Prevo.  I also testified in support of the ordinance on June 16 ( the second of five nights of public testimony). My testimony was based on two major research efforts in the 1980s for Identity, Inc. in which we documented the rampant discrimination in Anchorage & in Alaska based on sexual orientation. (Our research unfortunately did not cover discrimination on the basis of gender identity, which we knew little about at the time.)

The ordinance passed the Anchorage Assembly on August 11, 2009, but was vetoed the following week by Mayor Dan Sullivan — the third time in Anchorage history that equal protection for at least some LGBTQ people in Anchorage was first granted, & then stripped away again.

We weren’t real happy.

5. Friends & allies

The Summer of Hate wasn’t all hate & horror.  There was also some really cool stuff.

Cool stuff was people like Vic Fischer, Jane Angvik, & Arliss Sturgulewski testifying for the ordinance — people with just a teensy bit more credibility than, say, self-declared homophobic Bible-thumping Nazi “rascist” Eddie Burke.

Cool stuff was the huge number of people who turned out on the lawn of the Loussac Library to dance, blow bubbles, & hold signs upholding equal rights for all. The second week of public testimony, on which testimony was heard on two successive nights (June 16-17), was also the run-up to PrideFest, & every time I stepped out of the Assembly chambers for a breather, I felt like PrideFest was already in progress (once, that is, I got past the ABT redshirts & their hot dog tables).

I remember going out there one day & seeing how everyone — members of the LGBT community, & lots of non-LGBT folks including my nephew Miles & some of his friends — was celebrating equality & love for their fellow human beings, as sour-faced, red-shirted opponents stood nearby with their preprinted “Truth is Not Hate” signs agitating against equality.  I thought to myself, I’m so proud of my people — & I found myself for the first time consciously including in my people not just other LGBT people, but all the numerous non-LGBT allies who took it for granted that equality meant all of us.  And were as dumbfounded as we were at the “Truth is Not Hate” hate speech dropping out of the mouths of red-shirts both inside & outside the Assembly chambers.

On a personal level, I was lucky to make some new friendships.  John & Heather Aronno, both now of Alaska Commons, who I met a few days before the first public hearing, became my favorite folks to sit next to at Assembly public hearings: three bloggers, all in a row.

One of my other favorite new people was (& is) Janson Jones, whose fantastic photography at Floridana Alaskiana v2.5 (including of the ordinance battle) first drew my attention. He’s also an all-around cool guy who also became a new dad over the summer — & his photos of his precious daughter Aurelia are pretty wonderful too.

Thanks to the ordinance battle, I also got reaquainted with a friend from way back, Linda Kellen Biegel of Celtic Diva’s Blue Oasis, who I hadn’t seen in years. I’d known Phil Munger of Progressive Alaska through email, but not until this summer did I meet him in person. I’ve known M.E. Rider of Grrlzlist, E. Ross of Bent Alaska, & longtime activist (& maker of Equality Works buttons) Stef Gingrich for years, though it was only through the summer that we saw much of each other, since normally — yes, true story — I’m pretty much a hermit.

It was the ordinance that brought me out, for ill & for good. Despite the ordinance’s eventual fate — for me personally, thanks to people like these, it was mostly for good.

6. Palinesque

Somewhere in the middle of this was Sarah Palin’s announcement on July 3 that she would be resigning her position as Governor of Alaska.  I don’t blog that much about Palin — there are other Alaska bloggers who cover her quite thoroughly (thank goodness!) — but within a few days after her announcement, I got fed up with how the national mainstream media was uncritically passing along what I dubbed the 2 million dollar meme: Palin’s claim that $2,000,000 taxpayer (or rather, oil revenue dollars — this is Alaska, after all) had been spent on responding to ethical complaints against her. So I started taking it apart, & continued to do so over at total of six blog posts.

Wow did that raise traffic on my blog. I got nearly 1,800 hits on the first post of the series the first day after it was published; to date it’s gotten 5,530 hits, making it the most read post on my blog.  The pie chart I created for that post also proved to be pretty popular.

My stuff didn’t stop Palin from repeating her lie; but then, who expected that it would?  I’m no fool.  I just hoped the damn mainstream media would wake up & do the job they’re paid to do — so that bloggers like me wouldn’t have to do it for free. I am proud to say that my efforts, which Anchorage Daily News reporter Sean Cockerham picked up on, contributed to Linda Perez of the Governor’s Office being forced to admit there were errors in the hokey spreadsheet the Governor’s Office had cooked up in an incompetent attempt to back up Gov. Palinocchio’s claim.  Cockerham’s story (posted, as far as I know, only on the ADN’s Politics blog, but not as a full-fledged ADN story) said that Perez was going to follow up on further questions he’d brought up — I’ve seen no sign that she ever did, or that ADN itself cared.  I didn’t follow up further myself because by time Perez ‘fessed up as much as she did, I was in Spokane with my family remembering my mom & dad.  I have a feeling everyone who had actual responsibility (because, of course, they were more than mere “community organizers”) decided to drop it.  Gee. I wonder why.

7. I got a new couch

More properly, it’s a futon loveseat. Whatever.  I got it in August, & I’ve been vegging more happily (when I vege) ever since.  My cat loves it too.

8. An effort to up-end the Alaska Judicial Council

Other things were going on in my life too, of course.  But the political stuff stands out, because political blogging is not my great purpose in life — writing my own stuff is. And yet, I kept doing it.

And so it happens that in late August I learned of a lawsuit by which certain Alaska conservatives, most if not all of whom have ties to the so-called right-to-life movement, had filed suit nearly two months before — a fact not covered at all by Alaska’s mainstream media in spite of all of them having received the press release when the suit was filed — which would, if successful, overturn major provisions of the Alaska Constitution with regard to the selection & retention of state court judges. The lead attorney for the plaintiffs, James Bopp, Jr., is a big name: he has litigated similar issues elsewhere.  My own feeling is that this guy is more likely to have shopped around for the Alaskans who could be named as plaintiffs in this case, than that the plaintiffs shopped around for him.  His agenda appears to be a nationwide effort to politicize judicial selection, so that candidates can be selected through popular vote based on litmus test questions on hot-button issues (“What is your opinion on abortion?” — “What is your opinion on same-sex marriage?”), instead of being selected for their judicial integrity & knowledge of the law.

Through my job on staff of the Justice Center at University of Alaska Anchorage, which I’ve held since 1990, I’d become very familiar with Alaska’s judicial merit selection process, & have a lot of respect for it too, & for the quality of judges we have in this state.  Not perfect — but a helluva lot better than in states that have the politicized & often politically corrupt types of selection processes that Bopp seems to prefer.

So, I read about Miller v. Carpeneti, & I wrote about it, & I even took a day off work to attend the hearing before Judge John W. Sedwick in the U.S. District Court for the District of Alaska on September 11.   I’m not a lawyer, but I read through most of the briefings, & it didn’t seem to me that Bopp’s arguments held much water.  Judge Sedwick apparently agreed: he heard arguments from both sides & then dismissed the case. His opinion was published on September 15.

But we haven’t heard the last from Mr. Bopp: he’s appealed the case to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and, last I heard, the last briefs in the case must be filed no later than February 10, 2010. Oral arguments might then follow.  If Bopp fails at the Ninth Circuit, there’s every possibility he might appeal all the way up to the Supreme Court — he’s argued before them before, & won.

Meanwhile, I continue to wonder what in hell is wrong with the Alaska mainstream media, including our supposed paper-of-record, the Anchorage Daily News. First they all failed to follow up any further on Palin’s spreadsheet-of-hooey in support of her 2 million dollar meme-of-hooey; now it turns out they sat for nearly two months on a press release issued in early July about a lawsuit that could theoretically undermine our state constitution with regard to judicial selection.  Phil Munger at Progressive Alaska has drawn attention to numerous other instances in which the press has sat on its duff instead of investigating & reporting stuff that in some cases is right in front of their faces — for instance, the numerous lies propounded throughout Palin’s putative “memoir,” which the ADN has yet to write any review on.  What else are they sitting on?  How are we to have democracy that way, if the MSM isn’t doing its job?

Oh yeah, I remember now.  Bloggers like me are supposed to do that job nowadays.  In our spare time.  For free.

(All due respect to those reporters who as far as I can tell are doing their best to do their job — but are being shut down by management. I know you guys are out there.)

9. True Diversity Dinner

In the aftermath of Sullivan’s veto of AO 64, several of us bloggers who had been heavily involved in writing about it started talking about what we might do keep the flame alive.  Several of us met at lunchtime one day, & out of someone’s suggestion — I don’t remember whose — next thing you know, the True Diversity Dinner was born.  Its immediate impetus was that the upcoming Mayor’s Diversity Dinner, an event originally created during the administration of Mayor, now Senator, Mark Begich, had been renamed Mayor’s Unity Dinner by Mayor Dan Sullivan — the same guy who had just vetoed equal rights for Anchorage’s lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transfolk.

Instead of protesting, we decided to celebrate the rich diversity that the Mayor’s renaming of the dinner seemed designed to whitewash away. The True Diversity Dinner was our alternative, with the motto, “Because we all deserve a seat at the table.”  It was organized by the bloggers of Alaska Commons, Anchorage Won’t Discriminate, Bent Alaska, Floridana Alaskiana v2.5, Grrlzlist Alaska, Henkimaa, and SOSanchorage.net — but especially by John & Heather Aronno (Alaska Commons & SOSAnchorage.net), who I fear fell far behind in their studies thanks to the dinner.

But it was well worth it, right guys?  It was a tremendous event, with great speakers including my Assembly person Elvi Gray-Jackson, former Congressional candidate & longtime activist for Alaska Native rights Diane Benson, Rev. Marquita Pierre of the Center for Spiritual Healing, & radio host & blogger Shannyn Moore.

On top of that, I was honored to be the recipient of a True Diversity Award for Excellence in Online Media for coverage on my blog of the battle for the Anchorage equal rights ordinance.  Booyah!

10. Hilton workers

And more occasional politics.

When the True Diversity Dinner was first thought up, I hadn’t known that Mayor Sullivan’s Unity Dinner was booked for the Hilton Anchorage Hotel — which was (& still is) under boycott by its workers due to the bad faith practices of its management on orders of the Hilton’s owners, Kentucky-based Columbia Sussex Corporation.  A blog post by Shannyn Moore brought my attention to the fact that the Mayor’s Unity Dinner was also a union-busting dinner. I spent some time researching & writing about the labor dispute, & also attended the Hotel Workers Rising March from the Sheraton (which is now also under boycott due to similar management abuses of workers) to the Hilton two days after the True Diversity Dinner was held.

11. But I’m really about writing my own stuff, & that’s what I need to do now

I’d like to follow up on the hotel workers struggle, both at the Hilton & now the Sheraton.  I hope someone will.  But I can’t.  Here’s the deal.  There are people on this planet, there are people in this state, who thrive on political blogging, & what’s more excel at it.  I think I’m pretty damn good at it when I’m doing it — but I don’t thrive on it.  I start with enthusiasm, but over time… I wear down, my spirit flags, & pretty soon it winds right back into what I started this post with: depression & despair.

Midyear, in the post in which I claimed to be an occasional political blogger, I wrote,

The main reason I set up this site & blog was to help me get back into the flow of writing, of living my life as a writer.  And while writing about politics is writing — well, it’s not my writing, the stuff close to my heart.  Besides, I also work a full-time job.

Besides, sometimes the political stuff can really whack me out….

Another factor about how I handle political posts is that my style isn’t really amenable to fast-response writing, which is a feature of a lot of the best political bloggers I read.  But me, I like to think a lot about what I’m writing.  I like to go deep.  I like to be thorough & as comprehensive as I can.  I like to source all my references thoroughly.  I like — apparently — to write term papers.  (I sure never thought so when I was in college).  And that takes a long time.  Especially since, as previously mentioned, I work a full-time job.  And I also need a certain amount of down time or I am liable to put myself into a depression.

Sometimes, writing my own stuff actually feels like down time.  Reason: I said it above, it’s stuff that close to my heart.

So October saw me returning to writing — at that time, mostly background stuff or responses to stuff that I was reading in preparation for National Novel Writing Month 2009 (NaNoWriMo).  In looking back, I remember that True Diversity Dinner month — that is, September — also saw a bit of focus on writing: a couple of politically-oriented pieces about homophobia in science fiction, including one involving a publication I was writing a story for.  As it happened, I wasn’t far enough along on that story to meet the submission deadline of September 30 — so I picked up & polished an older thing instead.

And whaddaya know! in early October, I was told they wanted to publish it!  Which did much to make me feel like a writer again.

“Cold” was published on October 31, 2009 in Crossed Genres Issue #12, the LGBT issue, & you can still read it online there.  (When it’s no longer live there, & my contract with Crossed Genres permits, I will republish it right here at Henkimaa.com.)  “Cold” was also selected for inclusion in Crossed Genres‘ first-year anthology, which will include one story from each of the magazines first 12 issues.  I think it’s still on schedule for publication in February.

My username on NaNoWriMo: yksin.

November for me was the headlong hurry of NaNoWriMo.  As a result, as anyone who knows this blog saw, I didn’t do much blogging at all.  Such blog posts as got posted were mostly automatically generated “Daily Tweets” posts from my Twitter feed.  And I haven’t done much blogging since NaNoWriMo ended, either.

But whoa! I did a lot of writing — 51,607 words worth of it in November, making me a NaNoWriMo winner this year…. er… I mean, last year.  I was writing in the same story universe as “Cold,” which is about two young women on an extrasolar planet (that is, in another solar system) in the late stages of terraformation, which I’ve finally named Oikos — but my NaNovember 2009 writing was mostly about three centuries earlier in the timeline, before & around the time the ships that will eventually arrive at Oikos leave our solar system.  I called it Long Dark.

And a lot of it was background writing, rather than the story itself.  Because there is so damn much science that I need to have at least some kind of grasp on before I can do the story for real.

Though I came up with at least four stories over the course of the month that I know I can shape into good damn stuff.  And I also discovered that a character of mine from a supposedly completely unrelated project is, whaddaya know, an important historical figure for the society in Long Dark and Cold.  And since that character is very closely based on me… whoa, it’s an awful lot like, well, writing myself into history.  How cool is that?

(Or how egotistical?)

12. Since then…

… that is, during December — what have I been doing?  Not blogging, clearly. Except for one extensive rant about the leakage in various portions of my ceiling.  (Now cured, but the holes in the ceiling still need patching.)  Other than that, lots of vegging out, some writing, lots of reading — my latest topics have included atmospheric pressure, altitude sickness, & spacesuit design (background research for a story in the Cold universe) & how people with strabismus or amblyopia (the latter being the case for me), most of whom grow up stereoblind, might be able to develop stereo (binocular) vision.  Even at 50 years old. Which is what I am now.

50 years old, soon to be 51. And now I reflect on where I was at when I turned 50, early in 2009.  I was still in the cave.  But there were inklings of possibility.  I was still in the cave, for instance, when a confluence of ideas led me to decide how to go about my writing life, which included blogging & other forms of social media to get my stuff out there, instead of just through the old “send out craploads of query letters & get a shitload of rejection letters back before someone finally decides your stuff is good enough to publish” method that has been standard for a very bloody long time.  I knew I’d feel a lot more at ease finding my own audience through social media than going through the query letter drudgery.  It was still pretty remarkable that I made such a decision at such a time, though: social media? for someone who, at that point, was incapable & unmotivated to communicate at all?  But then, I knew the cave walls would dissolve sooner or later.  And they did.

I was also deciding, back in February of 2009 that age 50 was a good time to reach the milestone that I had apparently reached in the sorrows of that time.  The boy that I & Rozz-now-Ptery raised from age 9 was now 21 (& now, some months later, is actually 22), & is setting out on his own course in the world.  He’s in a residential job training program; I seem him some weekends when he comes into town.  Ptery is embarked on another course, living a nomadic life mostly off-the-grid in the Lower 48; we are no longer partners, however much we still love each other. So, I am single &, except for my cat & the boy’s dog, essentially alone.

When I was in college & took a class on Hinduism, I learned that the traditional life path for very pious Brahmin males was supposed to consist of several stages — four of them, I think — with the third stage being that of husband, father, & householder.  When the householding stage was over, these guys were apparently supposed to just up & lickety-split out to the forest to become religious ascetics.  Or something like that.

And when I turned 50, I thought: that’s it, I’m no longer a householder.  Well, I still have my apartment.  And I don’t plan to go live in the woods as an ascetic.  (Ptery’s path is a little closer to that, really.)  But I no longer have the responsibilities of a spouse/partner or of a parent to a minor child.  I can do what I want.  And what I need.

Which is to write.  But dang, it sure takes me a long time to get the politics out of my way to do it.

But I got to that point, & now I plan to continue.

That’s my story.

I’m such a cathead.

Related posts:

1. True Diversity Dinner 1 & 2: Video by Janson Jones
2. True Diversity Dinner video, part 3: Hotel workers, & Elvi's speech
3. True Diversity Dinner: September 25, 2009

Dan Sullivan at his first Assembly meeting as Mayor of Anchorage on July 7

Today’s the day that Mayor Dan Sullivan is expected to announce whether or not he’ll veto the Anchorage equal rights ordinance AO 2009-64 passed last Tuesday by the Anchorage Assembly.  Here’s the letter I sent him urging him to let it stand.

Dear Mayor Sullivan:

I am writing to urge you to permit AO 2009-64 to stand.

There have been a number of claims by various individuals that “Anchorage is tolerant” and there is “no discrimination” in Anchorage — ranging from various witnesses during the Assembly’s public hearings, to Assembly members Bill Starr and Chris Birch in explaining their vote last Tuesday, to the blogger at Alaska Pride, who over the weekend claimed that the lack of “dead queers” to match the bodies of homeless people found over the course of the summer was evidence of no discrimination.

These claims fly in the face of the experiences of discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity that other witnesses attested to — discrimination that they were unable to bring before the Anchorage Equal Rights Commission or the Alaska Human Rights Commission because such discrimination was not prohibited.  It was for this reason that I took part in two studies in the early to late 1980s to document sexual orientation bias and discrimination.  I have appended some of the pertinent findings from these studies below.  Full copies of the reports are available at http://www.henkimaa.com/identity/.  Full copies on CD and hard copies of the “Prima Facie” component were provided to all Assembly members when I testified on June 16.

These findings and the testimony of witnesses who testified to more recent incidents of sexual orientation and gender identity discrimination prove conclusively that there is such discrimination in Anchorage.

As is already written in Anchorage Municipal Code 5.10.010:

The public policy of the municipality is declared to be equal opportunity for all persons.

Is this really the Municipality’s public policy?  Or is it not?

If it is, there’s no question but that the ordinance should be allowed to remain as enacted last Tuesday by the Assembly.  Please do not veto.

Respectfully,
Melissa S. Green
Anchorage resident 1982–1987; 1990–present

Relevant findings from studies mentioned above:

• One in Ten: A Profile of Alaska’s Lesbian & Gay Community by the volunteers of Identity, Inc. (1986)
• Identity Reports: Sexual Orientation Bias in Alaska by Melissa S. Green and Jay K. Brause (1989)
• Full copies available at http://www.henkimaa.com/identity/.

Of the 734 respondents to One in 10 (statewide survey in 1985):

• 61% reported having been victimized by violence and harassment while in Alaska because of their sexual orientation;
• 39% reported having suffered from discrimination in employment, housing, and loans/credit; and
• 33% reported having suffered from discrimination because of sexual orientation from services and institutions.

From the “Closed Doors” component of Identity Reports (based on a 1987 survey):

• 31 percent of the 191 employers in the survey said they would either not hire, promote, or would fire someone they had reason to believe was homosexual.
• 20 percent of the 178 landlords in the survey said they would either not rent to or would evict someone they had reason to believe was homosexual.

From the “Prima Facie” component of Identity Reports (based on interviews and documentary evidence through 1987)

• 84 actual instances of antigay bias, discrimination, harassment, or violence (including three murders) were recorded involving 30 men and 21 women in the Municipality of Anchorage (64 cases), the City and Borough of Juneau (4), the Fairbanks North Star Borough (6), and 10 other localities in Alaska (10).
• Victims were predominately gay men or lesbians, but also included heterosexuals who were erroneously assumed to be gay or lesbian.
• Of the 42 cases of employment, housing, public accommodations, and business practices discrimination from personal (as opposed to documentary) testimony, 32 were evaluated by a former intake investigator with the Alaska Human Rights Commission as being jurisdictional under AS 18.80 (Alaska’s human rights statutes) if AS 18.80 had included “sexual orientation” as a protected class.

Related posts:

1. Anchorage’s LGBT Discrimination Survey
2. "There's no sign of discrimination" — uh, yes there is
3. Identity Reports & One in Ten — now online!

Identity, Inc. is a GLBTA nonprofit in Anchorage, Alaska. www.identityinc.org

In the 1980s, the nonprofit organization Identity, Inc. conducted two major research efforts to profile Alaska’s lesbian and gay community and to document sexual orientation bias in Alaska. The studies which resulted have gained relevance again with the introduction in the Anchorage Assembly in 2009 of ordinance AO 2009-64:

• One in Ten: A Profile of Alaska’s Lesbian & Gay Community by the volunteers of Identity, Inc. (1986)
• Identity Reports: Sexual Orientation Bias in Alaska by Melissa S. Green and Jay K. Brause (1989)

To make the studies more easily available, Identity has granted permission to scan the documents in and make them available on the Internet and to the Anchorage Assembly. Find both reports here.

Identity Reports (1989) and One in 10 (1986)

Some of the relevant findings from both reports:

Of the 734 respondents to One in 10 (statewide survey in 1985):

• 61% reported having been victimized by violence and harassment while in Alaska because of their sexual orientation;
• 39% reported having suffered from discrimination in employment, housing, and loans/credit; and
• 33% reported having suffered from discrimination because of sexual orientation from services and institutions.

From the “Closed Doors” component of Identity Reports (based on a 1987 survey):

• 31 percent of the 191 employers in the survey said they would either not hire, promote, or would fire someone they had reason to believe was homosexual.
• 20 percent of the 178 landlords in the survey said they would either not rent to or would evict someone they had reason to believe was homosexual.

From the “Prima Facie” component of Identity Reports (based on interviews and documentary evidence through 1987)

• 84 actual instances of antigay bias, discrimination, harassment, or violence (including three murders) were recorded involving 30 men and 21 women in the Municipality of Anchorage (64 cases), the City and Borough of Juneau (4), the Fairbanks North Star Borough (6), and 10 other localities in Alaska (10).
• Victims were predominately gay men or lesbians, but also included heterosexuals who were erroneously assumed to be gay or lesbian.
• Of the 42 cases of employment, housing, public accommodations, and business practices discrimination from personal (as opposed to documentary) testimony, 32 were evaluated by a former intake investigator with the Alaska Human Rights Commission as being jurisdictional under AS 18.80 (Alaska’s human rights statutes) if AS 18.80 had included “sexual orientation” as a protected class.

As I testified before the Anchorage Assembly on June 16, 2009, other testimony that had already been brought forward of actual cases of discrimination shows that sexual orientation discrimination, as well as gender identity discrimination, is still going on today. And I said that only two days into the testimony, which ended up taking up several hours over six different Assembly meetings, and including not only testimony from lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, and transsexual or transgendered people who had been discriminated against, but also testimony from ordinance opponents, many of whom made clear their prejudice and intention to discriminate. In fact, on the same night I testified, one man confessed to having physically assaulted a man who had (nonviolently) propositioned him — violently enough that he put the man in the hospital. And ordinance opponents applauded him!

Yet on August 11, 2009, in voting against the anti-discrimination ordinance AO 2009-64, two Assembly members — Chris Birch and Bill Starr — claimed that they could find no sign of “invidious” or “widespread” discrimination in Anchorage. Another Assembly member — Dan Coffey — constructed a resolution (which failed) for a task force to study the issue further, apparently because he also felt there wasn’t enough data. (Or not enough of the sort he wanted, perhaps.) Assembly Chair Debbie Ossiander described how she sought out data on sexual orientation and gender identity discrimination from the Anchorage Equal Rights Commission and the Alaska Human Rights Commission, only to find that there wasn’t any — because neither characteristic was covered by existing law. To Ossiander, that seemed to indicate that there was no data on discrimination — despite my testimony; despite my having provided every member of the Assembly with copies on CD of both reports, as well as a hard copy for each of them of the “Prima Facie” component of Identity Reports; and despite the testimony of other Anchorage residents on discrimination that they had actually experienced.

In this willful ignorance of data and testimony which had been placed before them, these four Assembly members were echoing much of the testimony of ordinance opponents, many of whom made the same claim: that “there is no evidence of discrimination.”  Can you imagine how crazymaking it was on June 16 to hear at least four or five people testify that — after I had just provided such testimony?  After other Anchorage citizens had just testified on the discrimination they had personally experienced?  This isn’t just them not having the facts.  This is them having the facts and intentionally refusing to look at them. Sort of like how some of Galileo’s contemporaries refused to look into his telescope to see the planets and moons that he had discovered.  There were even some of them who did look — and then blithely claimed that they had seen nothing: because it didn’t fit their preconceived notions and closed-system ideologies.

Take a look at the data for yourself.

In the meantime, thank you again to the seven Assembly members — Patrick Flynn, Sheila Selkregg, Jennifer Johnston, Mike Gutierrez, Matt Claman, Elvi Gray-Jackson, Harriet Drummond — who voted with the evidence, and passed an ordinance to prohibit sexual orientation and gender identity discrimination in Anchorage.

Call them and write them emails.  Let them know how much you appreciate them.

Don’t forget to call and write to Mayor Sullivan too.  Let him know how much you hope he, too, will go with the evidence.

Posts on this site which discuss data from the two Identity studies:

• 5/13/09. “Channel 11 interview, part 2 (the full story).” Both the Identity Reports write-up, and the full story, of my being fired from the Sears Mall branch of the Book Cache bookstore in 1984 after a coworker told my employers I was a lesbian.
• 6/2/09. “My letter to the Anchorage Assembly.”
• 8/7/09. “Delay by ‘task force’: My testimony to the Anchorage Assembly.” Text of my June 16, 2009 testimony.

Follow the tags to other posts at Henkimaa.com about One in Ten and Identity Reports.

Related posts:

1. Anchorage’s LGBT Discrimination Survey
2. My letter to Mayor Sullivan: Please let AO 64 stand
3. Identity Reports & One in Ten — now online!

We are all, or none. Equality Works! (Tip o' the nib to Stef, for buttonmaking!)

Over the past couple of weeks, Bent Alaska has been publishing some of the testimony of people who testified to the Anchorage Assembly in favor of the Anchorage equal rights ordinance AO 2009-64, which if passed will grant equal protection from discrimination to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and trans people who live, work, and/or visit the Municipality of Anchorage. And I realized, well, although I’ve written a fair amount on my blog about the ordinance battle, and even posted the full text of the letter I wrote to the Assembly in early June, I somehow hadn’t gotten around to posting the testimony I gave at the Assembly on June 16.  So that became one of my tasks this evening: to find my prepared testimony, & put it online.

I couldn’t have timed it better: earlier today I learned that Assembly Member Dan Coffey — in whose district I live — has placed a resolution on the agenda for the August 11 Assembly meeting which would establish a task force to study the issue.  For a year.  After we’ve just been through six long nights of public testimony stretched out over the summer.

Another year?

This isn’t the first time a task force has been suggested.  It came up in some of the questions Assembly members asked during the first night of public testimony way back on June 9.  The idea seemed to inform the proposal by Assembly Chair Debbie Ossiander, in her S-1 version of the ordinance, to authorize the Anchorage Equal Rights Commission to track complaints of discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity/expression (even while permitting most such discrimination to continue unabated).

My testimony, given on June 16, the same meeting at which Ossiander’s version was presented, directly addressed whether a task force was needed.  Here it is as I wrote it.

Thank you for hearing my testimony.

My name is Melissa Green. I am an Anchorage resident.

Identity Reports (1989) and One in 10 (1986)

I was part of two major research efforts in the 1980s to document sexual orientation bias in Alaska. One in 10: A Profile of Alaska’s Lesbian & Gay Community published in 1986 reported on the results of a statewide survey of 734 lesbian, gay, and bisexual Alaskans. Identity Reports: Sexual Orientation Bias in Alaska was published in 1989 and included three papers, including “Closed Doors,” a survey of Anchorage employers and landlords; and “Prima Facie,” which documented 84 actual cases of of violence, harassment, and discrimination due to sexual orientation bias. Copies of both reports are now on the Internet at Henkimaa.com — that’s H-E-N-K-I-M-A-A dot com. I’ve also prepared copies on CD for all members of the Assembly, as well as hard copies of “Prima Facie,” which I will give to the clerk when I complete my testimony.Some of the relevant findings from both reports:

Of the 734 respondents to One in 10:

• 61 percent reported being victimized by violence and harassment while in Alaska because of their sexual orientation;
• 39 percent reported discrimination in employment, housing, and loans/credit; and
• 33 percent reported discrimination from services and institutions.

From the “Closed Doors” component of Identity Reports:

• 31 percent of the 191 employers in the survey said they would not hire or promote or would fire someone they had reason to believe was homosexual.
• 20 percent of the 178 landlords in the survey said they would not rent to or would evict someone they had reason to believe was homosexual.

From the “Prima Facie” component of Identity Reports:

• 84 actual instances of antigay bias, discrimination, harassment, or violence (including three murders) were recorded involving 30 men and 21 women. 64 of the cases we documented were in Anchorage.
• Victims were predominately gay men or lesbians, but also included heterosexuals who were erroneously assumed to be gay or lesbian.

It was suggested last week that we need a “study” or a “task force” to decide if we need this ordinance. The studies have been done. The testimony you’ve already heard about discrimination updates those studies and shows that sexual orientation discrimination is still going on today. And that’s not even including the people who have not testified because there’s nothing to protect them from more discrimination for just showing up and telling you their stories. Do we really need another study, or a task force, to discover again what we have already know? There are at least 108 examples of other cities with similar ordinances, which not only continue to function, but do it better because their citizens do not suffer from unfair discrimination. I ask you: how much discrimination is tolerable? What is the threshold for justice? — how many stories do we have to bring to you before you stop passing it on to the future, and establish protections for the people who are being discriminated against today?

Please: pass a full version of this ordinance.

No, a task force wasn’t needed then; and nearly two months later, it still isn’t.  The task force proposal is just another means to delay acting in accordance with the public policy the Municipality of Anchorage purports to adhere to, as written in Anchorage Municipal Code 5.10.010:

The public policy of the municipality is declared to be equal opportunity for all persons.

Is this really the Muni’s public policy?  Or is it not?  Decide, and vote.

* * *

More about Dan Coffey’s task force resolution, starting with the text of the resolution itself:

• AR NO. 2009–186. “A resolution of the Anchorage Municipal Assembly authorizing a citizen task force to review the nature and extent of discrimination based on sexual orientation and the potential for conflict with constitutional rights.” Submitted by Assembly Member Dan Coffey for reading August 11, 2009.
• 8/6/09. “Coffey says city needs gay rights task force — NO DELAY: But backers and critics want to see assembly vote on proposed ordinance” by Don Hunter (Anchorage Daily News)

Incidentally, Don Hunter’s ADN story is incorrect in stating that there are “three versions of the original sexual orientation ordinance” for consideration by the Anchorage Assembly.  In fact, there are four versions: on July 23, Assembly Member Patrick Flynn announced on his blog that he had written a new draft, version S-2.

Here are all four versions of Ordinance 64:

• AO No. 2009-64. Original draft submitted on behalf of then-Acting Mayor Matt Claman, for reading May 12, 2009.
• AO No. 2009-64 (S). First substitution version submitted on behalf of then-Acting Mayor Matt Claman, for reading June 9, 2009.
• AO No. 2009-64 (S-1). Second substitution version submitted by Assembly Chair Debbie Ossiander, for reading June 16, 2009.
• AO No. 2009-64 (S-2). Third substitution version submitted by Assembly Member Patrick Flynn, for reading August 11, 2009.

I’ll be writing a post comparing the four versions over the next couple of days.  I’ll just say for now that I consider Ossiander’s S-1 version the worst of the four (it permits discrimination in private employment, and permits discrimination on the basis of gender identity across the board). Flynn’s S-2 is the best, and is the one I support: it’s the most clear both in its anti-discrimination provisions and in its language about religious exemptions, and addresses specific issues some had about employees of religious organizations such as Sunday School teachers and bus drivers.

I urge you to throw your support behind S-2, too. Let your Assembly representative(s) and Mayor Sullivan know which one you support.

Related posts:

1. What's on the table: Anchorage equal rights ordinance
2. "There's no sign of discrimination" — uh, yes there is
3. My letter to Mayor Sullivan: Please let AO 64 stand

Pamela Kelley (right) talking with Jean Craciun during a break at the July 21 Anchorage Assembly meeting

As mentioned in my previous post about UAA Justice Center Professor Pamela Kelley’s July 21 testimony at the Anchorage Assembly, there was some confusion about a particular court decision mentioned by a previous speaker.  This led Pam to write an letter yesterday to Assembly Chair Debbie Ossiander and Assembly Member Jennifer Johnston to clear up the confusion.  Pam sent me a copy as well, and she granted me permission to post it here.

Prof. Kelley’s email

From: [Email address deleted for privacy] On Behalf Of Pamela R. Kelley
Sent: Wednesday, July 22, 2009 4:51 PM
To: Ossiander@gci.net; JJohnston@gci.net
Subject: Ocale case bearing on AO 2009-64

I’m the UAA prof who spoke about what the law currently provides at the 7/21 hearing.  I’ve attached a letter explaining the significance of the Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore Services, Inc. (1998) case that an ordinance opponent referenced.  I’ve also included a copy of the case from the Lawyer’s Edition reporter of Supreme Court cases because I find them easier to read than the Legal Information Institute version.

Best wishes as you evaluate this tough call.

Prof. Kelley’s attached letter

Pamela R. Kelley
[address deleted for privacy]

July 22, 2009

VIA Email
Debbie Ossiander
Ossiander@gci.net

Jennifer Johnston
JJohnston@gci.net

Re: AO 2009-64 et al.

Dear Assembly Members,

I want to take this opportunity to correct any confusion brought about as a result of my testimony at the July 21, 2009 public hearing on the anti-discrimination ordinance. My hearing isn’t as sharp as it once was, and so I commented about the McCollough case that I thought a previous member of the public referenced. At the break I learned he’d spoken of the Oncale case.

I correctly represented that the former was not governing law in our jurisdiction, being neither a 9th Circuit Court of Appeals decision nor one of the U.S. Supreme Court. But Oncale is most definitely law governing in Alaska. However, that does not alter the thrust of the testimony I provided to you last night. Even Oncale does not provide the spectrum of protection that the proposed ordinance or charter amendments would provide. The case is quite limited in its scope.

Three minutes is not sufficient time to define the case law in a nuanced area such as the law of employment discrimination or the broader law of equal protection. Here, however, is a very succinct explanation for why I hold firmly to my view that the protections promised through the proposed ordinance are not provided through the application of Oncale’s rule to our community.

First, Oncale recognizes that the law of employment discrimination based on sex (42 U.S.C. 2000e-2(a)(1)) applies to men just as it applies to women. Second, Oncale recognizes that the specie of employment discrimination referred to as “sexual harassment” is applicable to cases in which the alleged harasser and victim are of the same sex. The balance of the case speaks to presumptions and standards of proof – more of interest to a litigator than a legislator I suspect.

Oncale arises out of events that occurred on an offshore oil platform, where Mr. Oncale worked as a roustabout who alleged he was fondled and threatened with rape by other members of his eight-man work crew. Assuming arguendo the facts he alleged were true, Mr. Oncale was the victim of prohibited sex discrimination because he was a heterosexual male.

The case is not one that extends protection from discrimination to the classes of persons identified in the ordinance. Cases of statutory construction (as opposed to constitutional right) are strictly construed and narrowly drawn. The holding in Oncale does not expand the reach of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended, to all gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered individuals as newly protected classes. Rather, it pronounces at most that homosexual persons are not free to discriminate against heterosexuals without risking liability under the Act.

Oncale is about “hostile work environment” sexual harassment. It is not about quid pro quo sexual harassment. It is limited to the workplace. It does not reach hiring, firing and promotion. It does not reach housing. It does not reach education. It does not reach commercial practices.

After reading Oncale last night, I spent most of the day reviewing the headnotes of the case law in the 9th Circuit to locate a case in which Oncale is cited by the court to form the basis for a more expansive holding than I have described here. I’ve read dozens of cases today. I have not found one that approaches the reach of the proposed ordinance. Instead, I continue to read cases in which Oncale is read as narrowly as I have described it. Courts are conservative institutions for the most part, in the sense that they follow precedent closely.

I urge you to consider the ordinance in light of what existing law actually is, and not how it has been represented to you out of context. If it passes, it will improve the lives of permanent members of our community whose children attend our schools and whose property taxes fund municipal services. I support the ordinance, I encourage you to do so too.

Respectfully,
Pamela R. Kelley

Oncale decision text & information

Click through for a copy in PDF format of the U.S. Supreme Court decision in this case.  The copy included here is as printed in the Lawyer’s Edition reporter, 140 L Ed 2d 201 (as provided by Prof. Kelley), which means that besides the decision itself, there’s also a case summary and headnotes.

• Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore Services, Inc., 523 U.S. 75 (1998).

Text of the case is also available through the Legal Information Institute at the Cornell University Law School.

Additional sources on the Oncale decision:

• “Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore Services.” Wikipedia article.
• Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore Services, Inc. , U.S. Supreme Court Case Summary & Oral Argument. The Oyez Project (website). Audio file and transcript of oral arguments made before the U.S. Supreme Court.
• “Oncale v. Sundowner: Same-sex Harassment, and Sexual Harassment of Men.” Sexual Harassment Support (website).

A note of irony

I can’t complete this post without noting the considerable irony in a case like Oncale being brought forth in support of arguments against an ordinance that would protect LGBT people from discrimination.  Here are a couple of relevant excerpts from the summary of the case at the Sexual Harassment Support website (emphases added):

In October 1991, Oncale was working for respondent Sundowner Offshore Services on a Chevron U. S. A., Inc., oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico. He was employed as a roustabout on an eight-man crew. On several occasions, Oncale was forcibly subjected to sex-related, humiliating actions against him by his male coworkers in the presence of the rest of the crew. His coworkers, including supervisory personnel, grabbed him, held him, removed their penises from their trousers and threatened to have sex with him. He also alleged he was in a shower when these same men entered the shower, pinned him, and abused him using a bar of soap. (Note: all men involved, including Oncale, were heterosexual.)

All of them were heterosexual. Then why were they harassing him?  Most probably the harassers perceived Mr. Oncale as gay; and in fact, per the text of the Supreme Court decision (written by Justice Antonin Scalia), when Mr. Oncale went to the company safety compliance clerk for assistance in stopping the harassment, the clerk “called him a name suggesting homosexuality.”

The Supreme Court decision ultimately stipulated that “Sex discrimination consisting of same-sex sexual harassment is actionable under Title VII” — regardless of the sexual orientations of the perpetrators or victims, or whether sexual desire or intentions were involved. Per the Sexual Harassment Support website,

This case also set the precedent that an harasser does not have to have sexual intentions towards a target for their behavior to be viewed as sexual harassment. For example, if a straight man is harassing another man, if the behaviors include unwanted sexual attention or actions, it can still constitute sexual harassment.

That’s of course exactly how it happened to Mr. Oncale: he was a straight man who was sexually harassed by other straight men. But male-on-male sexual harassment and worse is not uncommonly used by straight men as an intimidation tactic against homosexual men:

This case has been lauded by homosexual groups, who have pointed out that the precedent set provides protections for gays who are often the targets of sexual harassment because of their orientation. Indeed, it has been heralded as a landmark “gay rights” case, even though the people involved were all heterosexuals.

Indeed.  In Identity Reports, we documented two cases in which gay men were sexually assaulted by multiple assailants — in other words, gang-raped.  One of those cases was documented from newspaper sources, and it was unclear from the account what the assailants’ motivation was or what their sexual orientation was; but in the other case, taken from the victim’s personal testimony, it was clear that the assailants were heterosexual and that they targeted the victim specifically because they perceived (in this case correctly) that he was gay.

It was pretty violent, too — don’t read this next quote if you can’t tolerate graphic detail:

The other men had been drinking, and had brought some beer to the supply room with them.  Some had knives or broken beer bottles, with which they threatened him.  They also hit him.  They laid one of the mattresses from the supply room out.  Subject was raped anally by each of them in turn, and they cut his rectum with a broken beer bottle.

— Green, Melissa S. (1989). “Prima Facie: Documented Cases of Sexual Orientation Bias in Alaska.” In Melissa S. Green and Jay K. Brause, Identity Reports: Sexual Orientation Bias in Alaska (Anchorage, AK: Identity), p. 46.

It’s a common pattern: as anti-rape activists have noted for a good long time, sexual assault and rape are less about sex per se than they are about power, violence, and intimidation. As anyone knows who is familiar with the endemic problem of same-sex prison rape (see the website of Just Detention International, formerly known as Stop Prisoner Rape); as anyone knows who has read Anchorage Daily News reader comments about legislators convicted of corruption, as I have, where there were frequent “joking” references to “Don’t drop the soap” and other references — even outright calls for — the convicted legislators, all men, to be sexually assaulted in prison by other men.  Ha ha, how funny. Not.

Ironic, then,that a unanimous Supreme Court decision that condemns and outlaws such behavior — at least in the workplace — which has has been wielded frequently as a tool of violence and intimidation against people who are or are perceived to be lesbian, gay, bisexual, or trans, should now be used to argue against an ordinance which would prohibit other kinds of unfairly discriminatory behavior against them.

P.S. on reposting

Pam Kelley granted me this permission: “Feel free to put this to any use you want — I’m proud to pop my head up (among the throngs of three-minute experts) to speak clearly about equality.” Hence, ordinance supporters may feel free, with appropriate crediting & link back to this post, to repost this blog entry freely.

Related posts:

1. No, Debbie, Title VII does NOT prohibit sexual orientation discrimination in employment. Hello?
2. Kelley testimony 1: Contrary to prior Assembly testimony, existing law does not protect LGBT people from discrimination
3. Delay by "task force": My testimony to the Anchorage Assembly

Identity Reports (1989) and One in 10 (1986)

I will be testifying about these studies at tonight’s Anchorage Assembly meeting. They are are online by following this link: http://www.henkimaa.com/identity/.

Update (6/17/09)

I’ve turned this into a “sticky post” so it’ll stay on top for awhile, to make it easier for people to find the study documents. Over the next couple of weeks, I’ll be writing some additional posts highlighting some of the important findings from this studies.  Keep tuning in!

Meanwhile, follow the tags to other posts about One in Ten and Identity Reports.

Update (7/14/09)

Obviously I haven’t yet written those additional posts.  I still plan to, but time being what it is….

Meanwhile, I’m going to unsticky this post, & create a different top-level sticky post with more current topics.

Related posts:

1. Identity Reports & One in Ten — now online!
2. "There's no sign of discrimination" — uh, yes there is
3. My letter to Mayor Sullivan: Please let AO 64 stand

Identity Reports (1989) and One in 10 (1986)

You’ve heard about them — or maybe you haven’t — but now you have. Anyway: now they’re online!

As I wrote in my June 2 letter to the Anchorage Assembly:

It’s been pointed out that the government maintains no statistics on sexual orientation discrimination because it’s currently not illegal to discriminate on that basis. But it’s not entirely correct that there are no statistics at all. I was part of two research efforts in the 1980s to document the sexual orientation bias in Alaska. I was principal writer for One in 10: A Profile of Alaska’s Lesbian & Gay Community (Anchorage, AK: Identity, 1986), which reported on the results of a survey of 734 lesbian, gay, and bisexual Alaskans on a survey of 100 questions on various aspects of our lives, including experience of discrimination, harassment, and violence. I was coauthor, with Jay Brause, of the second, Identity Reports: Sexual Orientation Bias in Alaska (Anchorage, AK: Identity, 1989), which comprised three papers: “Coming Out: Issues Surrounding Disclosure of Sexual Orientation” (Green), based primarily on data from One in 10; “Closed Doors: Sexual Orientation Bias in the Anchorage Housing and Employment Markets” (Brause), based on a randomly selected, anonymous survey of 191 employers and 178 landlords in Anchorage; and “Prima Facie: Documented Cases of Sexual Orientation Bias in Alaska” (Green), which presented 84 cases from interviews, newspaper accounts, court records, and other documents of violence, harassment, and discrimination in Alaska on the basis of actual or assumed sexual orientation from 1975 to 1987. Copies of both reports are available in area libraries, including the Loussac and the UAA/APU Consortium Library.

But now no need to trot down to the library: just click through this link: http://www.henkimaa.com/identity/. Tell all your friends!

The files are quite big, by the way: because the original wordprocessing files weren’t available, they all had to be scanned in as images, so each document is howsoever many pages of full page images. Always a problem. I’ve broken down Identity Reports into its constituent papers too, but even then — “Prima Facie” is a big document.  Give it a try, if many people have problems I’ll see what I can do.  If you have a problem downloading, post a comment on this post, or on my “Equality” page.

A big thank you to Identity, Inc., the original sponsor of the research.  Although I wrote a lot of this stuff, they held the copyright — but they want people to know about this work, which is so very relevant to our current efforts to finally achieve legal equality in Anchorage.  Hopefully they’ll have copies posted to their website soon too.

Related posts:

1. Announcing the Alaska LGBT Community Survey
2. My letter to Mayor Sullivan: Please let AO 64 stand
3. Anchorage’s LGBT Discrimination Survey

Support Equality Works!

I finally completed my letter to the Anchorage Assembly today.  It went to all Assembly members as well as to Acting Mayor Matt Claman.  (Come to think of it, maybe I should send a copy to Mayor-elect Dan Sullivan too.  Whaddaya think?)

We’re one week away from ordinance testimony & possibly an Assembly vote. It’s time to write those letters to the Anchorage Assembly.  I’ve done mine, now it’s your turn!

Your letter doesn’t need to be as long and involved as mine — I am famously wordy.  There are some great suggestions for writing a letter by Equality Works’ Tiffany McClain at this post at Bent Alaska.  Equality Works has also put together an excellent summary of facts about the ordinance which address some of the common misconceptions (or downright fabrications) that people who are fighting equal rights are bringing up. Read it here.  Need Assembly contact info?  Follow this link.  There’s more info about the Anchorage Municipal Assembly at the Assembly’s website.

Letter in support of
Anchorage equal rights ordinance,
AO 2009-64

My name is Melissa Green. I have been a resident of Anchorage since 1982 (excepting a three-year period in Seattle), am an 18-year employee of the Justice Center at University of Alaska Anchorage, and have lived in Assembly District 4 since 2001.

I am writing in support of the proposed ordinance AO 2009-64 which would add “sexual orientation” and “veteran status” to those classes already included in Title V, Anchorage’s equal rights code.

I have been following the debate on the ordinance closely, and am disturbed by the misinformation being propounded about the ordinance by certain parties. For example, there have been efforts by Rev. Jerry Prevo and the Anchorage Baptist Temple, both through a letter faxed to “community leaders” on May 15 and through the website sosanchorage.com (and related television advertising) to confuse Anchorage residents about the definition of the term “sexual orientation” — both the common legal definition, and the definition actually contained in the ordinance. In both letter and website, it has been suggested that passage of the ordinance will somehow grant privileges to practitioners of a whole host of sexual practices listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th edition (DSM-IV), which in fact have nothing to do with the ordinance and which are in some cases — for example, pedophilia and necrophilia — illegal under Alaska statutes and federal law. (A bill outlawing zoophilia, also known as bestiality, is currently under consideration in the Alaska Legislature, and has already passed the House.) The letter, website, and ads also appear to be at the root of frantic claims that passage of the ordinance will somehow lead to the Boy Scouts being forced to hire homosexual scoutmasters, in spite of a U.S. Supreme Court decision which absolutely grants the Boy Scouts, as a private organization, the right to discriminate (under constitutional “freedom of association” guarantees); and similar claims that churches will be forced to hire homosexual Sunday school teachers, in spite of religious exemptions to the contrary that are built into the ordinance (not to mention the Constitution).

I understand that you as a member of the Assembly are under considerable pressure from the public opinion against the ordinance based on these misleading, red herring arguments. I urge you to base your vote on facts, rather than the false issues that have been raised.

Another common misconception that I’ve heard bandied about is that there’s no need for the ordinance because there’s no proven history of discrimination in Alaska or Anchorage based on sexual orientation. This is false. I myself have experienced job discrimination when I was fired from an Anchorage bookstore in 1984 for being a lesbian — an incident about which I was interviewed on Channel 11 News, and also wrote about in detail on my blog (http://www.henkimaa.com/2009/05/13/channel-11-interview-part-2/). I know of other cases that are more recent, and I hope some of the victims of that discrimination will overcome their fears of suffering further discrimination and will testify on June 9.

Identity Reports (1989) and One in 10 (1986)

It’s been pointed out that the government maintains no statistics on sexual orientation discrimination because it’s currently not illegal to discriminate on that basis. But it’s not entirely correct that there are no statistics at all. I was part of two research efforts in the 1980s to document the sexual orientation bias in Alaska. I was principal writer for One in 10: A Profile of Alaska’s Lesbian & Gay Community (Anchorage, AK: Identity, 1986), which reported on the results of a survey of 734 lesbian, gay, and bisexual Alaskans on a survey of 100 questions on various aspects of our lives, including experience of discrimination, harassment, and violence. I was coauthor, with Jay Brause, of the second, Identity Reports: Sexual Orientation Bias in Alaska (Anchorage, AK: Identity, 1989), which comprised three papers: “Coming Out: Issues Surrounding Disclosure of Sexual Orientation” (Green), based primarily on data from One in 10; “Closed Doors: Sexual Orientation Bias in the Anchorage Housing and Employment Markets” (Brause), based on a randomly selected, anonymous survey of 191 employers and 178 landlords in Anchorage; and “Prima Facie: Documented Cases of Sexual Orientation Bias in Alaska” (Green), which presented 84 cases from interviews, newspaper accounts, court records, and other documents of violence, harassment, and discrimination in Alaska on the basis of actual or assumed sexual orientation from 1975 to 1987. Copies of both reports are available in area libraries, including the Loussac and the UAA/APU Consortium Library.

I have attached a copy of the executive summary of the latter report to this email for your information. Some of the relevant findings from both reports:

Of the 734 respondents to One in 10 (surveyed in 1985):

• 61 percent reported having been victimized by violence and harassment while in Alaska because of their sexual orientation, predominately verbal abuse but also including threats, police harassment, property damage, and physical violence;
• 39 percent reported having suffered from discrimination because of sexual orientation in employment, housing, and loans/credit; and
• 33 percent reported having suffered from discrimination because of sexual orientation from services and institutions.
• 23 percent believed that they would be fired or laid off if their current employer or supervisor learned of their sexual orientation.
• 53 percent agreed with the statement that “I feel that my community is unsafe to live in as an openly gay man or lesbian.”

From the “Closed Doors” component of Identity Reports (based on a 1987 survey):

• 31 percent of the 191 employers who responded to the survey said they would either not hire, promote, or would fire someone they had reason to believe was homosexual.
• 20 percent of the 178 landlords who responded to the survey said they would either not rent to or would evict someone they had reason to believe was homosexual.

From the “Prima Facie” component of Identity Reports (based on interviews and documentary evidence through 1987)

• 84 actual instances of antigay bias, discrimination, harassment, or violence (including three murders) were recorded involving 30 men and 21 women in the Municipality of Anchorage (64 cases), the City and Borough of Juneau (4), the Fairbanks North Star Borough (6), and 10 other localities in Alaska (10).
• Victims were predominately gay men or lesbians, but also included heterosexuals who were erroneously assumed to be gay or lesbian.
• Of the 42 cases of employment, housing, public accommodations, and business practices discrimination from personal (as opposed to documentary) testimony, 32 were evaluated by a former intake investigator with the Alaska Human Rights Commission as being jurisdictional under AS 18.80 (Alaska’s human rights statutes) if AS 18.80 had included “sexual orientation” as a protected class.

Both One in 10 and Identity Reports were conducted by a nonprofit under grants from the Chicago Resource Foundation (with additional grant monies, in the case of One in 10, from the Anchorage Department of Health and Human Services) because, failing the ability of the government to compile statistics, it was only through private efforts that sexual orientation discrimination in Alaska could be documented. Results of Identity Reports were presented in 1989 to the Anchorage Equal Rights Commission, and played a role in the 1992-1993 equal rights ordinance battle. But its findings have been ignored and forgotten since, as have those of One in 10.

Regrettably, there is no similar documentation for the last 20 years of the sexual orientation bias and discrimination in Anchorage. But in spite of 20 years of growth in public tolerance and acceptance of lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transgender/transsexual people, discrimination still occurs, and equal protection in Anchorage from discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is still warranted.

I ask you to vote to extend the same protections to us, as are already extended to Anchorage citizens on the basis of race, color, sex, religion, national origin, marital status, age, and physical or mental disability.

Thank you.

Sincerely,
Melissa S. Green

Attachment: A Summary of Identity Reports: Sexual Orientation Bias in Alaska [executive summary] by Jay K. Brause and Melissa S. Green, 1989 [filename ID-reports-exec-sum.pdf]

Related posts:

1. My letter to Mayor Sullivan: Please let AO 64 stand
2. Identity Reports & One in Ten — now online!
3. Delay by "task force": My testimony to the Anchorage Assembly