Bloggy Monday | LGBTQI Blogs

The mainstream media doesn’t cover all the news that’s fit to print (or all the news that’s fitting), and one of the many topics that get short shrift are LGBTQI issues. There are several blogs that bring to insights not only to the hot button topics that make the mainsteam news, such as Proposition 8 updates, chatter about the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, and anything that Perez Hilton might say, but also how most issues in the news contain an LGBTQI component. The blogs featured on today’s Bloggy Monday are blogs that both give a voice to the LGBTQI community and help educate and enlighten all members of the greater community to understand how the issues that affect one community can affect all.

Box Turtle Bulletin

Box Turtle Bulletin takes its name from a statement written (though not spoken) by Republican Sen. John Cornyn at the Heritage Foundation that:

It does not affect your daily life very much if your neighbor marries a box turtle. But that does not mean it is right… Now you must raise your children up in a world where that union of man and box turtle is on the same legal footing as man and wife.

Standing against such rude, crude and humanity-denying comments, Box Turtle Bulletin is a news-focused blog that dedicated to fact-checking comments and statements about the LGBTQI community that appear in the media, and clearing up the misstatements, half-truths and flat-out lies. The blog is updated daily and brings to light many stories about high- and low-profile members of the LGBTQI community that the mainstream media misses. It also holds politicians accountable to promises made to the community, and highlights any discriminatory actions or remarks.

For example, a story featured on last week’s BTB highlighted the U.S. government’s apology to Frank Kamney, who in 1975 was fired from his job with the U.S. Army Map Service when his supervisors found out he was gay. According to Box Turtle Bulletin:

We often think of the 1969 Stonewall riots in New York as being the start of the Gay Rights movement, but that assumption ignores the bold, aggressive action by Frank Kameny, Barbara Gittings, Del Martin and Phylis Lyon, along with other pre-stonewall landmark events like the Black Cat Raid and the White House pickets. Frank Kameny was right in the middle of many of those bold initiatives in demanding equality for gay people when relatively few gay people themselves believed they deserved equality. Remember, this was a time when the medical profession regarded homosexuality as a mental illness.

Frank would have none of that. He co-founded the Mattachine Society of Washington, D.C., which in 1963 launched a long campaign to overturn sodomy laws and remove homosexuality from the American Psychological Association’s list of mental disorders. He participated in the very first picket line in front of the White House on April 17, 1965. Along with other activists from New York they expanded those pickets to include the Pentagon, the U.S. Civil Service Commission, and, more famously, to Independence Hall in Philadelphia. The Philadelphia pickets would become an annual event for the next five years.

In 1968, Kameny coined the phrase “Gay Is Good,” basing it on the slogan “Black Is Beautiful.” It was a bold and radical gesture for many gays and lesbians who hadn’t before dared to believe that about themselves. While Frank points to that phrase’s popularity as his most proud accomplishment, it wasn’t his last. He became the first openly gay candidate for Congress in 1971 (he lost), and he played a pivotal role in the APA’s removal of homosexuality from its list of disorders in 1973 (he won).

Questioning Transphobia

Questioning Transphobia comments on news from the transgender/trans-sexual community and occurrances of transphobia and violence against the trans community. It also includes musings on life from its bloggers Lisa and Queen Emily. I have found that this blog is a great place to learn about a segment of the community that receives very little coverage or empathy from the larger society and calls for cisgender folks (those whose gender matches the social appearance of their gender) to reflect upon the areas where they may be participating in harmful privilege or discrimination against the trans community. According to the blog’s “About” section:

Our gender is (as transgender and transsexual people) not respected, invalidated, insulted, and hated. We are denied personhood because our gender is not heteronormative enough: Proper men do not want to become women, and proper women do not become men, never mind the nuances of transgender identities, from two-spirits to androgynes, to ftm-spectrum and mtf-spectrum people who choose not to go all the way. We have trouble finding jobs and when we do Social Security is required by federal law to out us to our employers (in order to fight terrorists, you see). Trans people are murdered at a rate of 2-3 per month in the United States, and in states where violence against trans people for being trans people is not a hate crime, the “trans panic” defense is often used successfully. Trans people of color and with disabilities have to deal with oppression due to race, disability, or both in addition to oppression due to trans people, and the number of trans people of color who are murdered every year is disproportionately high, compared to the number of white trans people murdered. When we come out to our families, we risk losing them and getting thrown out on the streets (if we still live at home). Many of us turn to prostitution to survive when that happens. When we try to transition on the job, we are often fired.

Not for the faint at heart, in other words, but definitely the place to go to learn something about an injustice in our society that few have given attention.

Queers United

Another news-focused blog that brings attention to discrimination or action against the LGBTQI community, Queers United also provides bits of information about life within and without the community. One of my favorite features is the “Word of the Gay,” where a word or phrase used by the LGBTQI community or slang or slur against them is defined. For example:

Gay Word of the Day: Barsexuals. “Barsexuals” are straight girls who only make out with other girls when drunk for fun and/or attention.

Queers United also spotlights other LGBTQI blogs, and keeps readers informed about legislation on LGBTQI issues, same-sex marriage and Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell actions, support events and protests, and any boycotts against companies that discriminate against the LGBTQI community.