Henkimaa » Ivan Moore

Rollins trial, day 7: See Ivan Moore’s column on “consent” in rape cases

Mel Green — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 08:45:00 +0000

The trial in Case No. 3AN-09-07868CR, State of Alaska v. Rollins, is being heard before Anchorage Superior Court Judge Philip R. Volland in the Nesbett Courthouse at 4th & I in Anchorage. The trial resumes Monday, February 7.

Once again the trial of Anthony Rollins, the former Anchorage Police Department cop accused of serial rape — was livetweeted by Grace Jang of KTVA Channel 11 News, Christine Kim of KTUU Channel 2 News, and photographer Ken Fankhauser in livetweeting the Anthony Rollins trial. Once again, I didn’t do much retweeting, so see their Twitter feeds for complete coverage. Or, follow the links below to media stories on today’s (Thursday, February 3) day in court.

You’ll also want to take a look at Anchorage pollster Ivan Moore’s column which was posted online today at by the Anchorage Press (to appear also in tomorrow’s print version). Moore wrote about “consent” in rape cases — from former Anchorage School District music teacher Satch Carlson (after whom the eponymous “Satch Carlson” law) to Anthony Rollins. I still harbor some anger at Moore for his suggestion in 2009 that we should throw transfolk under the bus if we wanted to get an equal rights ordinance in Anchorage (I wrote about the issue here and here), but on the topic of rape, consent, Satch Carlson, & Anthony Rollins — he’s spot on. Thank you, Mr. Moore.

The Rollins trial will resume on Monday, February 7. The state is expected to complete its case that day, at which point the defense will take up its case. Until then, I’ll try to think up other stuff to tweet about.

RT: @adndotcom: 5th alleged victim testfies against former Anch. cop in sex-assault trial. http://bit.ly/f4Boql // Anthony Rollins trial #
RT: @SciInMyFi: Coffee #science for the morning office crew? Roast ark brown for antioxidants: http://bit.ly/hfjyKp // mmm French roast! #
RT: @SciInMyFi: Coffee good for women but bad for men in stressful situations? http://bit.ly/eeXprH #science #sff #
Anthony Rollins trial day 7, ex-APD cop accused as serial rapist: being livetweeted by @GraceJangKTVA @christineKTUU @photogfank #fb #
Guardian (UK): Are science fiction and fantasy poised to break into the literary canon? Man Booker Prize nominees? http://bit.ly/fC8As3 #
Anchorage Press > Ivan Moore on “Defining “consent” in rape cases, from Satch Carlson to APD officer Anthony Rollins http://t.co/L3zrVXx #
Per @GraceJangKTVA: Anthony Rollins trial resumes Monday. Judge says state will rest case on Monday; trial progressing quickly. #fb in reply to GraceJangKTVA #
@exart @audioleo OK just what the heck is Thunderant & Portlandia? in reply to exart #
@audioleo @exart Thanks! in reply to audioleo #
@10ch Oops! Getting a lot of wrong email, hey? in reply to 10ch #
Via @adndotcom final alleged sex assault victim testified at Anthony Rollins trial earlier today. http://bit.ly/dMaNAt // #fb #
Here again, my Henkimaa post from yesterday: Why I’m following the trial of alleged serial rapist Anthony Rollins http://t.co/MR74Kah #

Coverage of Day 7 in the press:

3 Feb 2011. “Phone calls by police led to 6th alleged victim in Rollins case” by Casey Grove (Anchorage Daily News).
4 Feb 2011. “The Moore Report: Defining ‘consent’” by Ivan Moore (Anchorage Press).

(I’ll add the KTUU & KTVA stories when they become available.)

Keeping the T in LGBT

Mel Green — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 18:43:25 +0000

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

[See also my previous post on this topic, We are all, or none.]

Well, now, short shrift has certainly been given to pollster Ivan Moore’s idea (posted on June 4 at 4:00 PM in comments on the web-posted version of his article in the Anchorage Press) that

I think the religious right would live with the ordinance just on gay-straight orientation.

Guess not. For Lo, verily! yesterday morning, suddenly beheld upon the front page of Jerry Prevo’s how-to-raise-money-for-your-church-by-telling-lies website SOS Anchorage dot com (won’t raise its profile by giving it a direct link, though I’ll gladly link to its debunking alter ego SOSanchorage.net), was the following announcement:

NEW!!! A revised version of the sexual orientation ordinance has been released by the acting Mayor. Supposedly, it is to prevent some of the problems we have raised. However, the term “sexual orientation” is not acceptable in any discrimination ordinance. The first ordinance shows what the homosexual movement really wants. We must say NO to the inclusion of homosexuality in any discrimination ordinance. Please encourage the Assembly to vote NO on this ordinance and do not amend Anchorage’s discrimination ordinance to include homosexuality as an acceptable alternative lifestyle. This will eventually lead to homosexuals wanting to make homosexual marriages legal in Alaska.

Well, that makes it crystal clear. We wouldn’t be able to buy tolerance for lesbians and gays from Prevo even if we were to throw our trans brothers and sisters under the bus in the name of political expediency.

… Are you really surprised?

Not that we would be willing to do so even if betraying our friends would soften Prevo’s heart against us. Might do his heart good if he could convince us to make such a devil’s bargain — wouldn’t do our hearts good at all. As I wrote to Anchorage Press associate editor Brendan Joel Kelley yesterday,

Although Ivan Moore clearly knows politics, & may be using his best political judgment in advocating going for a sexual-orientation-only ordinance right now, he doesn’t understand the politics of the LGBT community enough to know that for us now, as far as we’ve come, that’s not politically possible. 17 years ago, sure. Not now. We as a community (& I as an individual) have evolved a lot in our understanding of trans issues, in pretty personal & inextricably emotional ways. We’d be selling our souls to follow his advice.

Since I wrote that, I’ve seen my sense confirmed doubly and triply that not only us LGB’s (lesbians/gays/bisexuals), but also our nongay/and nontrans Allies, are solid in our intent to stand as one with transfolk.

Rev. Norman Van Manen of MCC-Anchorage addresses listeners on the topic of Would Jesus Discriminate?

How widespread this feeling is was most powerfully demonstrated for me at the Town Hall meeting last night at St. Mary’s Episcopal Church on the topic of “Would Jesus Discriminate?” sponsored by MCC Anchorage and the local chapter of Integrity, the organization of LGBT Episcopalians and their friends. The people gathered there were members of at least three different Christian faith communities in Anchorage — MCC Anchorage, St. Mary’s Episcopal Church, and Immanuel Presbyterian Church — if not more, as well as people from no particular faith community, like me. They included gay men, lesbians, straight folks, and at least three transwomen — that is, women who had been identified at birth (incorrectly, as it turns out) as male.

After a prayer service and potluck meal, Rev. Norman Van Manen of MCC gave his keynote address on the topic at hand, which was followed by remarks by Sara Gavit of St. Mary’s and Integrity of Anchorage. And then the Town Hall opened for discussion by people attending.

Close to the beginning of the conversation, a transwoman sitting in front of me asked all of us if the LGB portion of the community was going to renege during this ordinance fight on its loyalty to the T part of the community, as she had seen happen in other places she’d lived.

That’s when it happened. The very next person to speak, a woman — heterosexual I think, though I’m not sure — told us she’d arrived late because she’d wanted to watch the Channel 2 News about the work session the Anchorage Assembly had held earlier in the day (at which I was present), in which changes to the draft of the proposed ordinance were discussed. Then she’d downloaded and printed out a copy of the revised draft, and brought it to us at St. Mary’s. And with outrage she pointed out new language that had been inserted:

The prohibition of discrimination based on sexual orientation imposed by this chapter does not apply to discrimination because one’s biological gender in matters such as access to restrooms, nor does it change the rights of employers and operators of public accommodations to impose reasonable dress codes, work rules or other rules of general application.

People were very upset by the new language — everybody. Not only that, but no one had to explain to anyone present why the bathroom language was problematic. Out of perhaps 40 or 50 people in the room, of whom only three that I’m aware of were trans, everyone knew that the language as written lacked any recognition whatsoever of the need for safe, appropriate restroom facilities for transgender/transsexual persons. If forced to use only those bathrooms dictated by “one’s biological gender” (whatever that is — but more on that later), rather than according to their gender identity, transfolk are at incredible risk of being victimized by harassment and violence when all they simply want to do is to have a safe place to pee.

Looks like Pastor Prevo’s beardos-in-the-bathroom meme has borne fruit after all.

John Arrono and Heather James of the fact-checking site SOSAnchorage.net. And engaged to be married! Congratulations!

And everyone last night was upset about it. No more discussion of “Would Jesus Discriminate?” — we all knew he wouldn’t, whether we considered ourselves Christians or not. Now to act on our knowledge? It was all: what do we do about this? how do we fight it? how do we convey to the Assembly that we want this bad and poorly constructed language out of the ordinance? As the good people at SOSAnchorage (the truth-telling version that ends in .net, that is), both of whom were present at the Town Hall, wrote in their post about the ordinance changes last night,

What? Did the transgendered just get thrown under the bus? Will there be someone hired to stand at the entrance to all the bathrooms in Anchorage, in order to check the genitalia of anyone who tries to walk in, just to make sure they really should use those facilities? Can women use the ladies’ room if they’re wearing pants? Where will the line be drawn?

Mel Green of Henkimaa.com and John Arrono of SOSAnchorage.net. Us equality-loving bloggers have gotta stick together.

Good question. One I’ve asked before, given that I myself, a woman with a “mannish” gender expression, have at times been given the once-over when I’ve gone into the women’s room. More than once I’ve wondered if some self-appointed member of the gender police was eventually going to demand that I drop my pants or expose my breasts to prove I belonged in there.

Here’s something to think about: biological sex — or, as the “poddy language” in the revision to the proposed ordinance would have it, biological gender — is not quite so cut and dried as as the proposed language would have it. Check out all these typical features of sex:

Genetic/chromosomal sex: XY in male; XX in females
Gonadal sex (reproductive glands): testes in male; ovaries in females
External morphological sex: penis and scrotum in males; clitoris and labia in females
Internal morphological sex: seminal vesicles and prostate in males; vagina, uterus, and fallopian tubes in females
Hormonal sex: primarily androgens in males; primarily estrogens in females
Phenotypic sex: facial and chest hairs in males; breasts in females
Assigned sex/gender of rearing: male or female
Self-defined sex: male or female [Ref. 1]

But, as explained by Julie A. Greenberg,

Two circumstances may lead to an intersex condition: (1) one or more features may differ from the typical criteria for that factor; or (2) one or more factors may be incongruent with the other factors. [Ref. 1]

Beardo in the bathroom? Thanks to polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS), which afflicts as many as 10% of women, I am a "bearded lady" unless I shave.

For example, there are a whole bunch of atypical chromosomal arrangements that doctors have found besides XX or XY: XXX, XXY, XXXY, XYY, XYYY, XYYYY, XO. Some people, instead of typical ovaries or testes, have “streak” gonads that don’t work as either ovaries or testes, or have ovatestes which are a combination of both, or have one ovary and one testis. Some have external genitalia that aren’t clearly that of one sex or the other… and so on, down through every characteristic of sex listed above. [Ref. 1] I myself have a condition, found in about five to ten percent of women, called polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) which gives me atypically high amounts of male hormones in my body which causes me to have more facial hair than is typical for women: unless I want to be a bearded woman, I actually have to shave my chinny-chin-chin. Check out the accompanying picture to see what I look like if I don’t.

So: what’s the definition of biological sex, then? How far down are the gender police going to strip people down to in order to determine if they’re in the right bathroom?

Here’s another thing to think about: maybe we’re going to have to think a little bit more deeply about how we can keep everybody safe in the bathroom, trans and nontrans alike. It’s pretty apparent that Rev. Prevo’s scare tactics have pushed some major buttons of fear for some Anchorage residents. But the fact is that transgender/transsexual people are the people most likely to be victimized in bathrooms, whether by harassment or violent assault. A 2001 survey by the San Francisco Human Rights Commission found that 41 percent of transgender respondents to its “Gender Neutral Bathroom Survey” reported being harassed or assaulted in single-sex public bathrooms. Many nontrans respondents also reported problems, especially butchy-looking women like me, and “feminine”-seeming men. [Ref 2]

All of us, male and female, straight and gay, trans and nontrans, young and old, deserve safe bathrooms. It’s absolutely the case that if we intend, as the proposed ordinance intends, to protect people from arbitrary discrimination on the basis of gender identity, that more than lip service needs to be paid to the issue of bathroom safety. We can do better than the unsatisfactory language in the revision to the proposed ordinance, which appears to be geared only towards calming the paranoia of Prevo’s listeners, while not at all addressing the total issue of safety. We might start with taking a look at something I discovered along the way of writing this post: a resource from the Transgender Law Center, based in California, designed specifically to help communities find ways to make bathrooms safe places for transfolk. Peeing in Peace: Resource Guide For Transgender Activists And Allies goes according to California law, so it might not be adaptable to Anchorage down the line — but it’s a beginning. [Ref. 3]

Think I’ll read it myself.

References

Greenberg, Julie A. (2006). “The Roads Less Traveled: The Problems with Binary Sex Categories.” In Paisley Currah, Richard M. Juang, and Shannon Price Minter, eds., Transgender Rights. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Pp. 51-73.
San Francisco Human Rights Commission. (2001). “Gender Neutral Bathroom Survey.” San Francisco: Transgender Law Center.
Transgender Law Center. (2005). Peeing in Peace: Resource Guide For Transgender Activists And Allies. San Francisco: Transgender Law Center.

We are all, or none

Mel Green — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 04:28:38 +0000

Equality works -- but only if it works for everyone. Otherwise, guess what? It's not equality.

Yesterday I came across a new opinion piece in the Anchorage Press called “Prevo’s right, sort of” by Anchorage pollster Ivan Moore. It was about the Anchorage equal rights ordinance, of course, so I went on to read it, figuring to stick it in the “supports ordinance” or “doesn’t support ordinance” listing on my Equality page‘s listing of resources about the ordinance, whichever applied.

But y’know, I couldn’t figure out which category applied. Both? Neither? Just like its title, it seemed like six of one, half a dozen of the other: Mr. Moore wanted the ordinance to pass, but he didn’t. Maybe he wanted two ordinances. I dunno. It was hard to figure. Still is.

Mr. Moore seems clearly to favor adding sexual orientation to the Muni’s equal rights code. He also claims to favor protecting people from discrimination on the basis of gender identity. But he’s got a problem with the definition of sexual orientation as written in the proposed ordinance because, he says, the definition confuses the two. And he wants gender expression tossed altogether.

Here’s the definition of sexual orientation as contained in the ordinance:

Sexual orientation means actual or perceived heterosexuality, homosexuality, bisexuality or gender expression or identity. As used in this definition, ‘gender expression or identity’ means having or being perceived as having a self-image, appearance, or behavior different from that traditionally associated with the sex assigned to that person at birth.

The problem is, as Moore points out, that sexual orientation and gender identity are two different things. In the word of Jennifer Finney Boylan the male-to-female transsexual whose book I’m Looking Through You Moore is reading right now, sexual orientation is “about who I wanted to go to bed with” — i.e., which sex one is physically and emotionally attracted to; whereas gender identity is about “who I wanted to go to bed as” — i.e., whether one understands oneself to be, at root, female or male.

So to Moore, because the definition the ordinance’s crafters are using seems to include gender identity as a subset of sexual orientation, it’s wrong. So wrong, in fact, that the definition even plays right into the hands [gasp!] of the scatalogically-fascinated Prevo et al. religious right, much to Moore’s colorful chagrin:

By contrast, religious definitions of sexual orientation all intermingle the concepts of gender identity and sexual behaviors, all of them filthy nasty, for no other reason than because it’s in their puritanical interests to do so.

The shockingly numbnuts move here was that the AKCLU and Pat Flynn and whoever else was responsible for crafting this ordinance played right into their bigoted hands by including gender identity and gender expression as “subsets” of sexual orientation.

What’s Moore’s solution?

On June 9, the Assembly should cut the words “or gender expression or identity” and the related language, and simplify the ordinance down to its real intent, to protect gays from being discriminated against. Gender expression and identity are simply not nice tidy subsets of sexual orientation, and so their placement as such is wrong. Personally, I think they should consider the inclusion of gender identity, but separately from orientation. Gender expression should be gotten rid of entirely, the mostly heterosexual crossdressers can just freaking do it in private, and the drag queens… well they don’t care, they like the controversy anyway.

The part I’ve emphasized in bold is what has really created a stir amongst supporters of the ordinance. It gave a lot of us the feeling that Moore was advocating — if only “temporarily” — throwing transfolk under the bus this go ’round. Something like the way John, one of the people whose commented on the story on Anchorage Press‘ website, thought. John opined:

Ivan’s polls are usually accurate, and his opinions are also worth considering. He makes a good point here. I think Sexual Identity is also worth protecting, but it is different than Sexual Orientation (or preference if you prefer). Let’s take the easy one first and see how that works.

So here we see equal protection from discrimination for lesbians, gays, and bisexuals, along with heterosexuals, described as “the easy one” (wow, I’ve been involved in these battles before — you call this easy?!!!), but transsexual/transgender people? They can just wait.

Let’s be fair to Mr. Moore. He did say, already included in the quote above:

Personally, I think they should consider the inclusion of gender identity, but separately from orientation.

And earlier today, addressing other people’s comments (including mine) on his article, he said further:

I’m not throwing anyone under the bus. I would be the first to vote in favor of gender identity as a separate protected class if I was on the assembly. But it just doesn’t belong under the umbrella of orientation.

Well, Mr. Moore, I’m afraid I’m going to have to wait until you’re on the Assembly to try testing that out. Meanwhile, I’m sorry to say that I’ve got the same suspicion that a lot of other folks have had: did Moore, a politically-connected pollster, write the article to float a possible compromise on the ordinance, much along the lines of what commenter John wrote: “Let’s take the easy one first and see how that works”? Let’s just do gender identity as a separate thing — but not quite specify whether that should be done now, or later. And since it is true that gender identity and sexual orientation are two different phenomenon — we’ll just use that definitional nitpickiness as a wedge to kinda split the two apart — one can hardly complain about the integrity of our nomenclature, can one? Oh yeah, and that other pesky part of the definition, the part about gender expression? — well, let’s just toss that part out altogether, because after all, Prevo is right (says Moore) about the spectre of predatory guys in dresses invading the women’s restrooms of the Anchorage heartland. Wrote Moore:

Gender expression? I tell you, JERRY PREVO IS RIGHT! Some guy with a beard is going to get dolled up in a fearsomely attractive outfit and go hang out in the ladies bathroom in City Hall, looking for a lawsuit. Men aren’t going to be lining up to troll the ladies bathroom looking to “prey on women and children” like the loopy right says they will, but the fact that the law could be made an example of in this way shows that it is bad public policy. I bet you someone does it, just to make a point.

And as previously quoted:

Gender expression should be gotten rid of entirely, the mostly heterosexual crossdressers can just freaking do it in private, and the drag queens… well they don’t care, they like the controversy anyway.

Red herring, red herring / the Prevo treat / more fun to look at / than it is to eat

Which all just means to me that, whatever else of Prevo’s that Moore has steered clear of, he’s swallowed one of his super smelly stinky inedible red herrings — in this case the one about what gender expression means — hook, line, and sinker — and somehow without managing to arf the smelly red herring up all over his keyboard.

(Unless he didn’t.)

So what the heck is gender expression, then?

My mom & dad, about 2003

My mom would’ve known what gender expression is, because to her frustration, all our lives that we shared together, I simply wouldn’t cooperate with the gender expression she thought I ought to have. Female as I was, female as I continue to be, I simply refused to be feminine. I hated wearing dresses; nylons, shiny slick high-heeled dress shoes. Put barrettes in my hair — I’d take ‘em out as soon as I got out of sight. She cried when I wouldn’t wear a dress under my cap and gown when I took my diploma at my college graduation. As a poem I wrote to her long ago ends,

I will not be your daughter in a dress
but I am your daughter and
I want you to accept me
because I love you.

She did, too, because in the end my mom always knew what was really important. And so I haven’t worn a dress since my oldest brother’s wedding in 1982. Even now I feel completely wrong, not myself, to wear women’s-cut t-shirts, blouses with lace or puffed-up sleeves, anything that’s designed to show off cleavage. (Outer wear, that is — what I wear “under” would meet my mom’s approval, no prob.)

So let’s look at this part of the ordinance definition again:

As used in this definition, ‘gender expression or identity’ means having or being perceived as having a self-image, appearance, or behavior different from that traditionally associated with the sex assigned to that person at birth.

A recent depiction of my typical gender expression (with Sydney, my neighbor's sister's ball python)

Unlike a transsexual person, who has a self-image different from the sex assigned to that person at birth, my self-image completely matches my biological sex: I am female. But I don’t express my femaleness in the way my mom always wanted me to express my femaleness, with the clothing and other accoutrements that I was told from knee-high was supposed to fit me to my sex. It didn’t fit me. It made me feel like someone being forced to be something, someone, that she is not. It’s still that way. I’m your proverbial lesbian-in-sensible-shoes. And trousers, t-shirt, and baseball cap.

So when I see gender expression in the proposed ordinance, amongst other things I see is me being protected from getting fired, evicted, or otherwise unfairly discriminated against only because I don’t fit someone else’s arbitrary idea of “femininity.” If I’m qualified and do the job well, if I have a good credit rating and pay my rent on time, what right does my employer, landlord, or anyone else to tell me that I must wear a dress or lipstick in order to match their concept of how I should express my genderedness? Doesn’t mean I won’t dress nicely if the job demands it. Does mean that I can’t be forced into a dress or lacy blouse, pocketsless pants, and lipstick. And let’s not forget that my appearance (which, yes, often gets me once-overs in women’s rooms & “sirs” in stores) marks me to people with the slightest bit of gaydar as a lesbian. If the ordinance passes with only sexual orientation as part of it, I’m still fair game for arbitrary discrimination — the agent of bias can always just hide their anti-lesbian sentiments when they explain to the Equal Rights Commission: “Hey, I’m within my rights — I didn’t like her gender expression.”

Not all lesbians are like me in this regard — we’ve got our “lipstick lesbians.” Nor are all heterosexual women unlike me in this regard. Same goes for men: there are so-called “effeminate” men of all sexual orientations, just as there are “macho” men of all orientations.

Then there’s the gender expression of transfolk, for which another definition, this one from About.com, might be helpful in understanding:

Gender Expression is the physical manifestation of one’s gender identity, usually expressed through clothing, mannerisms, and chosen names. Transgender people usually have a gender expression that matches their gender identity, rather than their birth sex.

So gender expression is another part of the protection designed into the proposed ordinance for transsexual/transgender people, just as much as it is for more “masculine” or “butch” women like me, regardless of sexual orientation; or more “feminine” or “androgynous” men like — oh, say, Prince — who has a well-documented history as a heterosexual. For transfolk, being protected from unfair discrimination on the basis of gender identity without also being protected on the basis of gender expression is just another way of saying: you’re not protected. Particularly those transfolk who are in the midst of undergoing the long, arduous process of so-called sexual reassignment, which generally requires lengthy periods of time living according to their gender identity (as opposed to the sex they were assigned at birth) even before they’re permitted to undergo any sexual reassignment surgeries.

So you see what Ivan Moore is throwing under the bus by accepting Prevo’s skewed and fear mongering “definition” of gender expression at face value.

Later in comments on his Anchorage Press article, Mr. Moore added a comment:

I’ve changed my mind on one point. If a beardo dressed up as a woman and hung out in the ladies restroom, he would probably still be arrested and led out in cuffs. Just because a man could be guaranteed freedom from discrimination based on gender appearance, that wouldn’t make him a woman. And last time I looked, men weren’t allowed in the ladies’.

Bingo! This is at least a step in the right direction — though I am helpless not to point out Andrew Halcro’s much more elegant (and refreshingly campy!) takedown of Prevo’s ludicrous beardos-in-the-bathroom meme on June 1 in the Alaska Dispatch. (Which just goes to show you that camp isn’t restricted to drag queens — Mr. Halcro is also a well-documented heterosexual, with wife and two adult children. You go, Andrew!)

Meantime I suppose we must take at his word Mr. Moore’s assurance that he is as much in favor of protecting people from arbitrary discrimination based on gender identity as he is on sexual orientation. And hope that he will read beyond Jennifer Finney Boylan’s book and Rev. Jerry Prevo’s raise-funds-for-the-Anchorage-Baptist-Temple-through-a-pack-o’lies website to come to a more complete understanding of gender expression.

Meantime, I personally am satisfied that the crafters of the ordinance perfectly well understand the difference between actual or perceived heterosexuality, homosexuality, bisexuality or gender expression or identity — the terms included for convenience, if not strict sexologist definition, as being covered by the proposed ordinance’s term sexual orientation. I haven’t met even one lesbian, gay, bisexual, or trans person — I have talked with lots and lots of them — who is in the least bit confused with the definition as used in the proposed ordinance, or fails to understand why the Assembly in crafting it chose to use sexual orientation as an umbrella covering all three related but different terms: sexual orientation proper, gender identity, and a term that applies to members of all sexual orientations and gender identities in one way or another, gender expression.

And meantime, if there is any question at all about whether the LGBT community or our allies, will accept some sort of politically expedient “throw the transfolk under the bus” compromise in order to buy protection for the “easy” bunch of us, think again.

Ptery, my 16-year partner, in early transition as a female-to-male transsexual (& who I'm not going to throw under a bus)

One of the first questions I had about this ordinance when I first learned it would be proposed was “will it also include transpeople?” That’s not just a matter of some ideal of LGBT unity with me: my partner of 16 years (now my ex for complex & mainly unrelated reasons), after many long years of struggle with feelings about gender identity, came out as transman last fall. Is he any less deserving of protection from discrimination than I am? The answer isn’t far from my heart at all: if gender identity were written out of this ordinance, my support for it would instantly evaporate, on those grounds alone. I could not face my the woman I fell in love with 16 years ago who now knows himself as a man if I were to stand still for such a betrayal. I couldn’t face my trans friends. I couldn’t face anyone. Nor will the rest of us.

In the words of Equality Works’ recent press release (posted earlier here):

People need protection from discrimination on the basis of their gender identity/expression. No one — straight or gay — should be treated unfairly in work or the public sphere. Equality Works believes the small minority of transgender people in our community — people who have served in our military, who drive our taxis, and who have children and families to provide for — are no less deserving of employment and housing than anyone else. While some in our community try to paint transgender people as a dangerous threat, transgender men and women are far more likely to be the targets of violent harassment and discrimination than those who would refuse them equal opportunity under the law.

In the words of the my friend E. Ross at Bent Alaska:

Don’t play Prevo’s divide-and-conquer game. Stand with us in support of a transgender-inclusive nondiscrimination policy.

… And now I check the comments on Mr. Moore’s article again, to find that Ivan Moore added another comment today at 4:00 PM:

I am not trying to divide and conquer, that’s absurd. If I have an agenda here at all, it is to see something get passed that is amenable to both sides. I think the religious right would live with the ordinance just on gay-straight orientation.

There you have it. He does want to just do the “easy” stuff now, in order to satisfy the blind prejudice and willful ignorance of the Prevo-dominated radical right. Transfolk, in his opinion, can wait.

The way it’s written right now, I think it comes back to us as an initiative, it will go to the voters, the community will really fight a war, and your “side”, knowing Anchorage, may end up with NOTHING.

Well, I guess that’s the risk we’ve decided to take. It’s not amenable to our “side” to betray transfolk for political expediency. We stand together.

In the words of one of my friends who stands at the forefront of this decades-long fight for equality: