Empty Closet, February 2012

The Empty Closet

l a i n i

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local, state and national news , newsmaker interviews , opinion, entertainment, columnists , event calendars , and health resource listings

number 453 a publication of the gay alliance of the genesee valley

Partnerships The Gay Alliance appreciates the continuing partnership of businesses within our community who support our mission and vision.

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Challenge Grant Success!

By Sue Cowell Thanks to the generosity of a special group of supporters, the Gay Alliance was able to launch a $25,000 Challenge for our Fall Appeal donation campaign. This Challenge campaign was an historic first for us. The idea was that each donation made to the Fall Appeal would be matched dollar for dollar, up to $25,000. I am thrilled to report that with the community’s help we met our goal!

Rochester has a long history of supporting local non-profit organizations and the Gay Alliance truly has a strong base of support from our donors. Many people have a shared history with the agency dating to the early 1970s. Many of our younger members came of age in the Gay Alliance Youth Program and are now active members. This year everyone played a part in helping meet this historic first.

The online giving response to the Campaign was incredible. We provided updates through our Web site and Facebook letting you know what amount was still needed to hit the $25,000 mark and you responded. Together we showed that many smaller donations can have a huge impact. Ultimately, these smaller gifts from many, many people in the community helped us meet our goal. As a community we all share in the success and pride of this campaign.

I realize we all have to make decisions concerning what we can support and at what level.

Yet it is important to remember that each gift, even the small ones, makes a difference in our ability to continue the work that we do. Thank you for the encouragement and the trust you have shown in our agency! ■

of his life as a female.

As a teenager, he identified as gay and joined the Gay Alliance at age 15. Pat joked, “I remember coming to the first (trans group) meeting and somebody said, ‘Which way are you going?’”

Pat emphasized that all trans people are individuals and that it is easy to be invisible – which is not ultimately in trans people’s best interests.

Jane Marie said, “Cross dressers are a wide spectrum of people.” She noted that there used to be little The Transgender Panel drew around 50 people on Jan. 12. Photo: Jim Wilkins signs indicating that someone was cross dressing, but “now everybody wants to be metrosexual,” so it’s harder to tell.

By Susan Jordan what is deep in your soul.”

Many of Jane Marie’s friends The Transgender panel disThe panelists were Maur who are cross dressers have been cussion on Jan. 12 drew around DeLaney, who identifies as genin the military services. “We do 45 people to the Gay Alliance derqueer; Deb Oppenheimer, all the macho things and then Youth Center, to hear the stories who is MTF; Pat Pitoni, FTM; we come back -- and that’s who of diverse transgender lives and Jane Marie, a cross dressing activwe are.” to learn the most effective ways ist; Cassie Dubicki, a straight She explained, “I like to wear to lobby for passage of GENDA, ally; Christopher Argyros, FTM women’s clothes – it’s just anoththe NYS transgender rights bill. and Empire State Pride Agener side of myself. Cross dressers Moderator Pamela Barres da Trans Rights Organizer, and are often heterosexual and usu(MTF) started the evening by Kelly Clark, Gay Alliance Wellally don’t desire to transition. saying, “Welcome to the Rainness and Safety Director.

But those who do transition bow within the Rainbow. That’s Pat Pitoni said he has been usually start out as cross dresshow I think of the trans commucalled a trans pioneer, which he ers. Some will cross dress occanity.” She explained how diverse initially objected to — “Don’t sionally, while others live it full the gender variant community call me a pioneer!” But, he said, it time…. We’re here and around; is, and stated further, “Transis actually true. He transitioned we’re not psychos, we’re gender is not about surgery, but at age 27, and lived almost half Trans panel continues page 3

Transgender panel explores “The Rainbow within the Rainbow”

Champion:

Coming up: Red Ball, N.E. Pride conference Friend:

Don’t get cabin fever this winter – get out and about at these special February and March events.

The Red Ball, a Valentine’s Dance celebrating community, love and friendship, will take place Saturday, Feb. 11 from 7-11 p.m., in the Cathedral Hall

at the Auditorium Center, 875 E. Main St., hosted by the Gay Alliance of the Genesee Valley.

Tickets are $10 in advance and $15 at the door, are online at www.GayAlliance.org and will also be available at Equal=Grounds and Outlandish. The dance ticket includes light refreshments and desserts.

Wear red to win prizes; enjoy music, beer and wine cash bar, a Coming up continues page 6

FEBRUARY 2012

Thanks to our challenge grant donors!

John Altieri Evelyn Bailey Ralph Carter and Van Van Zanten Pat Collins Sue Cowell Patricia Criticos Emily Jones and Deborah Hughes William Kearns III and Jason Barnecut David Omdahl and Christopher Barry Cynthia Woolbright and Bill Spelman IGBO Mid-Year

n i

o w T ne O Welcome to the new Empty Closet

The paper is now in one handy section of 36 pages. We hope you like it.

Please check out the Empty Closet pages on our website – go to www.gayalliance.org, click on Empty Closet News. Also, The Empty Closet and the Gay Alliance both have Facebook pages.

The EC will soon have a Twitter feed as well. Now there’s no reason to miss the latest gay news as it happens! Stand by for more improvements this year. ■

Contents Newsfronts................................... 4 Interview: Jim Costich.................. 7 Making The Scene.....................10 Opinion........................................12 Columnists.................................22 Community ................................25 Entertainment: Angels...............27 Gay Alliance News.....................30 Resources...................................32 Ongoing Calendar.....................33 Calendar.....................................34 Classifieds..................................34

Proud Publisher of New York State’s Oldest Lgbt Publication

Trans-Basics See Centerspread

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the empty closet • the gay alliance of the genesee valley • number 453 • FEBRUARY 2012

Gay Alliance of the Genesee Valley

Perspectives From the Empty Closet Editor Susan Jordan

ignore this and continue perpetuating transphobia and heterosexism as a way of gaining votes or tithes from bigoted followers – they hope.

In New York, transgender citizens are still waiting for passage of GENDA, the bill which would provide the most basic civil rights protections for them. Whether many New York voters will really choose candidates based on their level of hatred for trans people is the big question. Has the Right’s “bathroom bill” propaganda succeeded in turning public opinion away from justice for trans New Yorkers since 2008, when a majority backed GENDA, or will conservatives see few or no gains from their anti-trans position next November?

Politicians and other public figures are most impressed by personal letters and phone calls from members of the public – voters/taxpayers. Please consider writing or calling your Albany representatives and asking them to support passage of GENDA. In this issue, we have included information on that September 2011 poll by the non-partisan Public Religion Research Institute; an article on the book “The Lives of Transgender People”; an interview with Rochester intersex activist Jim Costich; an interview with transman Jason Ballard; news and a column by Rev. Irene Monroe about trans people of color, who face the most severe hate violence of any queer group; an op/ed piece by Dr. Jillian Weiss on LGBT power relations; an article on WPATH’s study of revised standards for transgender healthcare and changing caregiver attitudes toward trans people; information on transgender issues from Gay Alliance Program Director Scott Fearing and Outreach Coordinator Jeannie Gainsburg, and more.

The EC will continue to make transgender issues and GENDA visible to our readers.

We also hope to publish more about bisexuality in 2012, starting in this issue on the Resources page. Columns, op/ed pieces, reviews, etc. are always welcome! ■

In this issue: transgender focus In this special issue, The Empty Closet focuses on transgender and gender variant identities and lives. The diverse trans community is often misunderstood by lesbians, bisexuals and gays, as well as by straight society.

Both gender identity and sexual orientation are much more complex than conventional “wisdom” dictates, and both transgender and bisexual people experience heterosexist stereotyping.

The gender variant community is not monolithic; it is made up of a wide spectrum of individual identities, including people who have transitioned from one gender to the other, whether male to female or female to male, and also people of intersexed, androgynous, gender-nonconforming, genderqueer, transfeminine, transmasculine and other identities.

One major challenge shared by transgender and bisexual people is invisibility. Gay men and lesbians have worked with trans people on civil rights and AIDS issues, marched with them in Pride parades, sat next to them on barstools for decades – but not until the late 1990s did the trans community start to become visible and vocal. Even so, a September 2011 poll indicated that an overwhelming majority of all Americans supports transgender civil rights. Conservative politicians and preachers, of course,

Many things

From the Gay Alliance Executive Director sue cowell

The importance of new and continuing support The significance of our donors cannot be overemphasized. Annual cuts in state funding and grants over the past decade have affected all of New York State’s non-profit organizations, and it is because of our donors that we are able to continue offering our valuable services to the Greater Rochester LGBT community.

The agency is blessed with a loyal donor base -- people who contribute every year and whose support is invaluable. However, one of the truly impressive things about 2011 was the incredible support shown by new donors.

In 2011 alone, the Gay Alliance had 366 new donors, who together donated $51,093.52. To give this number some perspective, we had 185 new donors in 2010. $8,777.24 of the donations made by new donors were made through United Way, which has year after year been a valuable

support to our work. If you are interested in donating to us through United Way’s 2012 campaign, just be sure to designate us on forms available through most employers (United Way Donor Option #1135, SEFA Donor Option #68-00048, CFC Donor Option #93910).

These numbers do not yet include donations made through United Way’s ROC the Day, an unprecedented day of giving in which $3985 was donated to the Gay Alliance within the space of 24 hours.

Another huge event in 2011 was the second annual Ride for Pride. The 35 riders, many of whom were straight allies, raised over $10,000 for their 100-kilometer bike ride on June 18. Several of these riders have already begun their fundraising for the 2012 Ride for Pride: please visit our website for continuing information on how you can support these dedicated volunteers!

2011’s GAGV Dines Out event was also a wonderful success. Twenty-two restaurants, coffee houses and taverns across Rochester donated a portion of their sales on Oct. 25, which helped us raise over $6000.

Hundreds of people throughout Monroe County showed their support of our mission by going out with their friends for a delicious bite to eat. Stay tuned for news on 2012’s Dines Out! There have been so many ways that people have shown their support for the Gay Alliance, and every last contribution helped us provide the services that are needed throughout the community.

Thank you to all of our donors: our work is impossible without your support! ■

THANK YOU to the MACY’S FOUNDATION for being the presenting sponsor of the Gay Alliance Donor Event on January 26

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The Empty Closet • Youth Program • Rochester Pride Education Program & Speakers Bureau Community Safety Program & Anti-Violence Project InQueery • CampusOUT • Library and Archives Gay Alliance Resource Directory Shoulders to Stand On • Rainbow SAGE • SafeZone The Gay Alliance plays a central role in advocating for the fair and equal treatment of all people, regardless of their sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression. www.GayAlliance.org

E-mail Membership levels: ❏ $30-99 Advocate ❏ $100-999 Champion ❏ $1,000-4,999 Triangle Club ❏ $5,000+ Stonewall ❏ Enclosed is my check in the amount of _________ (check #______) Please charge my credit card in the amount of: __________ To: ❏ American Express, ❏ Discover, ❏ MasterCard, ❏ Visa Credit card # _____________________________ Exp. Date: _______ ❏ I would be proud to have my donation publicly acknowledged.

Benefits include: a subscription to The Empty Closet mailed to home or work, plus privileges at each level. Phone: 585 244-8640 or mail to: Gay Alliance, 875 E. Main Street, Suite 500, Rochester, New York 14605. Home delivery of the Empty Closet is free with your annual membership in the Gay Alliance.

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to Many people

The Empty Closet is published by the Gay Alliance of the Genesee Valley 875 E. Main Street, Suite 500 Rochester, New York 14605 © 2011, All rights reserved.

Editor-in-Chief: Susan Jordan Staff Reporters: Ove Overmyer, Laur McSpadden Graphic Design: Jim Anderson Staff Photographer: Jim Wilkins Advertising policy: The Empty Closet does not print advertisements that contain nude drawings or photographs, nor does it print advertising that states that the person pictured in the ad is for sale, or that you will “get” that particular person if you patronize the establishment advertised. Advertisements that are explicitly racist, sexist, ageist, ableist or homophobic will be refused; advertisements from organizations that are sexist, racist, ageist, ableist or anti-gay will also be refused. All political advertisements must contain information about who placed them and a method of contact. Additionally, The Empty Closet does not print negative or “attack” advertisements, whether they relate to a product or politics and no matter in whose interest the ad is being produced. A negative advertisement is defined as one that focuses upon a rival product, or in the political area, a rival election candidate or party, in order to point out supposed flaws and to persuade the public not to buy it (or vote for him or her). The Empty Closet maintains, within legal boundaries, neutrality regarding products, political candidates and parties. However, “attack” ads that fail to provide undisputable evidence that the information in the ad is true do not further in any way the objectives and policies of the Gay Alliance or The Empty Closet, including the primary tenet that The Empty Closet’s purpose is to inform the Rochester gay community and to provide an impartial forum for ideas.

Submissions: For publication, submit news items, ads, photos, letters, stories, poetry, ads, photographs or art by mail or in person to The Empty Closet office by the 15th of the month.

Design services for non-camera ready ads are available for a fee. (www.emptycloset@ gagv.us) Publication Information: The Empty Closet is published 11 times a year (December and January combined) by The Empty Closet Press for the Gay Alliance of the Genesee Valley, Inc. Approximately 5000 copies of each issue are distributed during the first week of the month, some by mail in a plain sealed envelope. The publication of the name or photograph of any person or organization in articles is not an indication of the sexual or affectional orientation of that person or the members of that organization. For further information, please write to The Empty Closet, 875 E. Main St., Rochester NY. 14605, call (585) 244-9030 or e-mail emptycloset@gagv.us.

The Empty Closet is the official publication of the Gay Alliance of the Genesee Valley, Inc., as stated in the bylaws of that organization. Its purpose is to inform the Rochester gay community about local and national gay-related news and events; to provide a forum for ideas and creative work from the local gay community; to help promote leadership within the community, and to be a part of a national network of lesbian and gay publications that exchange ideas and seek to educate.

Part of our purpose is to maintain a middle position with respect to the entire community. We must be careful to present all viewpoints in a way that takes into consideration the views of all – women, men, people of color, young and old, and those from various walks of life.

The opinions of columnists, editorial writers and other contributing writers are their own and do not necessarily reflect the collective attitude of the Gay Alliance of the Genesee Valley or The Empty Closet. The Empty Closet shall not be liable for any loss or expense that results from the publication (whether correctly or incorrectly) or omission of an ad. In the event of non-payment, your account may be assigned to a collection agency or an attorney, and will be liable for the charges paid by us to such collection agency or attorney.

Letters to the editor: The opinions of columnists, editorial writers and other contributing writers are their own and do not necessarily reflect the collective attitude of the Gay Alliance of the Genesee Valley or The Empty Closet. We will print letters at the editor’s discretion and on a space available basis. Only one letter by the same writer in a six-month period is allowed. We will not print personal attacks on individuals, nor will we be a forum for ongoing disputes between individuals. We reserve the right to edit for space and clarity. We will print anonymous letters if the name and phone number are provided to the Editor; confidentiality will be respected. Submissions are due by the 15th of the month at: The Empty Closet, 875 E. Main Street, Suite 500, Rochester, NY 14605; e-mail: emptycloset@gagv. us. Online edition of EC available at www. gayalliance.org.

FEBRUARY 2012 • number 453 • gay alliance of the genesee valley • the empty closet

NewsFronts Local and State

ABOVE & BEYOND: Bess Watts and Anne Tischer receive the Labor Council’s Mother Jones award. Photo: Ove Overmyer

Labor Council presents Mother Jones Award to activists Bess Watts and Anne Tischer On Dec. 8, Jim Bertolone of the Rochester Labor Council presented Bess Watts and Anne Tischer of MENY-Rochester and Pride at Work AFL-CIO with the “Mother Jones Award for Sacrifice Above and Beyond,” for their work on marriage equality.

Thanks to years of work with labor, every labor union in Rochester supported marriage equality actively with petitions, calls, personal letters and lobbying by almost every union leader. It was the key to obtaining Republican Senator James Alesi’s vote.

To build relationships with union people, Bess and Anne made union rally signs, walked picket lines, cooked for striking workers, attended union events and spoke at every possible venue. Bess jokingly claims she was “forced” to drink beer with blue collar union guys for two years to get them on board... hence the “sacrifice.” ■

Forney Center launches 24-hour drop-in service The Ali Forney Center, the nation’s largest organization working on behalf of homeless lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) youth, on Jan. 9 announced that it has been awarded a two-year matching $500K Challenge Grant from the Calamus Foundation of New York.

This grant will make possible the launch of the nation’s first 24-hour dropin services center for homeless LGBT youth, even as NYS cuts back funding.

In 2012, the Calamus Foundation has pledged to match all donations made by new donors or increased donations made

page one ( Trans panel from page 1) just people.” She wants to help cross dressers overcome the fear of being exposed and come out.

Maur DeLaney said that as a genderqueer, “At any given moment I range from 40 to 70 percent male – maybe. Sometimes I have a gay male side, sometimes I’m something else entirely. It wasn’t easy to come to the point where I realized what was going on.”

Maur married and had a child, but “it occurred to me that something was missing. I wasn’t seeing the whole picture.”

Ze was performing all the stereotypical gender roles for women, which became increasingly painful. Ze made friends with lesbians and joined the Rochester Women’s Community Chorus.

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Marriage Equality USA comes to Rochester; Meet new E.D. Feb. 16 Mission accomplished. The successful passage of the Marriage Equality Act in New York left Marriage Equality New York (MENY) members celebrating but wondering what’s next for the organization.

The short answer according to Jo Meleca-Voigt, Rochester regional leader, is that MENY is expanding its focus and forging new alliances to fight for national marriage rights and recognition of our families.

“After many years working closely together, both Marriage Equality New York (MENY) and Marriage Equality USA (MEUSA) saw the passage of marriage equality in New York as the right opportunity to formally combine forces to push for full marriage equality in all 50 states and at the federal level. The Boards of both organizations will combine and Brian Silva, the current Executive Director of MENY, will continue in that role in the newly merged organization. Brian Silva is no stranger to Rochester and will be sharing his vision and the organizations plans here on Thursday February 16 at a Marriage Equality USA Kickoff Party,” Meleca-Voigt said.

“I am very excited about combining these two tremendous grassroots forces to push for our ultimate goal of full equality,” Silva said. “With the current political atmosphere where some people feel they can use our love and families as punching bags to score political points, I think it is critical that we combine resources and continue to push back and fight for our rights.”

Brian Silva is the new executive director of Marriage Equality USA

The new organization has already started on many projects, including joining the coalition in New Hampshire to fight the repeal of marriage equality, and is working to participate in the new push for equality in New Jersey. Members will be phone banking, as well as canvassing and educating on the importance of marriage equality. “Rochester will play an active role in the repeal of DOMA” said Meleca-Voigt. “We have successful experience to share with other states and our own Congressional representatives must be brought on board. “ MENY-ROC and ally Equality Rochester invite the Rochester community to come meet Brian Silva at a Marriage Equality USA Kickoff Party Thursday, Feb. 16, 6:30 – 8 p.m. at Downtown United Presbyterian Church, 121 Fitzhugh St. 14608. ■

by existing donors dollar for dollar up to $250K. In the second year, 2013, the foundation will award $1 for every $2 donated by new or increased donors up to $250K. The foundation will also match new corporate and other foundation revenue.

Said Carl Siciliano, Executive Director of the Ali Forney Center: “The Ali Forney Center is thrilled to kick off our 10th Anniversary year by opening a services center available to youth at any times of the day or night. This facility will help address one of our major concerns, the growing number of homeless LGBT youth on the Center’s waiting list who resort to sleeping on park benches and subway cars, and must engage in high-risk behavior to survive.” ■

SUPPORTING SEN. ALESI: On Jan. 11, over 75 people attended a meet and greet fundraiser for Rochester area NYS Senator Jim Alesi (R-55th District) hosted by Tim Tompkins and Mark Siwiec. The local LGBT community thanked him for his courageous effort in support of the marriage equality legislation that was signed into law last year and to offer him assistance in his 2012 re-election bid. The national anti-gay group NOM has sworn to defeat him by lavishly funding his opponent. Above left to right: Senator Jim Alesi, and hosts Tim Tompkins and Mark Siwiec. 75 people attended the fundraiser. Photo: Ove Overmyer.

“I started to explore gender and hung out with the Trans Action Group guys for a while. It’s hard when you don’t fit between the lines and aren’t either choice A or choice B. I like the word genderqueer because I don’t have to fit between the lines.”

One of the most difficult things is the use of pronouns, Maur said. “‘She’ pronouns are like a scratchy sweater. I tried neutral pronouns – no one could get it right more than once in an afternoon.”

Maur has started a group called Genesee Valley Gender Variants. “It’s a place where we can go and be with people who understand. It means a lot to me to be visible, so we can be seen as people… It’s going to take standing up, like being open at work.”

Deb Oppenheimer, a longtime trans community activist, said, “I knew I was different but had absolutely no language to explain or describe it.” As a child, she was tormented by other kids. She was ath-

letic and in high school pushed away all ideas of gender identity, but at the movies she identified with the female characters.

“Finally I thought, maybe I’m gay – but that wasn’t it.”

Deb became introverted: “I was always watching what I said.” She fell in love and married, but, she said, “There’s only so long you can keep this buried.” Finally she did transition and found support in her workplace during the process. “Society has the mistaken idea that we’re broken and need to be fixed,” she said. “I am not broken. This is who I am.”

Straight ally Cassie Dubicki, a member of the Gay Alliance Speakers Bureau, described in detail her experiences as a psychology worker with trans clients. She saw caregivers who had sworn to “do no harm” reject trans people’s definitions of themselves in a cruel way and insist they conform to gender stereotypes; because of this people who needed medical care did not receive what they needed. “I had a safe

zone sticker in my office,” she said, “and I put one up in the shared office. It came down and I put it up again – and it came down again. I realized it was not safe. We do need to move things forward.”

Kelly Clark, Wellness and Safety Director for the Gay Alliance, spoke about her experience as Diversity Director at SUNY Geneseo, where at one point she worked with a transgender intern. “The people in the group worked intimately doing social action theatre and we also talked about our lives and how we were trying to change things. We learned a lot about what it’s like to be a trans person. I listened to this trans person’s experience with family, professors, living in a dorm… we all walked away from the experience really changed, and thinking, what difference does it make?”

Responding to an audience question, Kelly said, “I have a vision of the world where there is a curriculum for new parTrans panel continues page 6

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the empty closet • the gay alliance of the genesee valley • number 453 • FEBRUARY 2012

NewsFronts national and international California trans rights bills go into effect Two landmark transgender rights bills signed by California Governor Jerry Brown last year became law on January 1, 2012.

AB 887, the Gender Nondiscrimination Act, authored by Assemblymember Toni Atkins, strongly clarifies the existing employment, housing and other civil rights protections for all Californians. The law makes it clear that discrimination is not legal in California. AB433, the Vital Statistics Modernization Act, authored

by Assemblymember Bonnie Lowenthal, streamlines the process for Californians to obtain and update birth certificates.

“This is a huge victory, and yet there is still work to be done in order to make sure all our laws and societal attitudes are fair and promote justice for transgender people,” said Kristina Wertz. “The passage of these bills motivates me to work harder than ever before to ensure transgender and gender non-conforming people have access to quality health care and are treated with dignity and respect.”

Transgender Law Center will continue to offer assistance to anyone who experiences challenges in obtaining documentation appropriate to their gender identity or anyone who experiences discrimination in housing, employment and other situations. The process of legally changing name or gender can take longer than expected, as courts are experiencing a back up due to budget cuts.

“It’s a new era for transgender Californians and their families. I am incredibly proud of our staff, our allies, the legislators and Governor Brown for putting an end to discrimination,” said Masen Davis, executive director.

Frequently Asked Questions about both laws are available at www.transgenderlawcenter.org.

Report says Latino/a trans people face high levels of discrimination Latino and Latina transgender and gender non-conforming people face some of the highest levels of discrimination of all transgender people, according to a new analysis released Dec. 5: “Injustice at Every Turn: A Look at Latino/a Respondents in the National Transgender Discrimination Survey”.

This report by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, the National Center for Transgender Equality and the League of United Latin American Citi-

zens (LULAC) is a supplement to the groundbreaking national study, “Injustice at Every Turn: A Report of the National Transgender Discrimination Survey,” which was published in February 2011 and revealed widespread discrimination experienced by transgender and gender non-conforming people across the board.

A key finding of the original report was that, even given the unconscionable levels of discrimination against all transgender people in the U.S., people of color including Latinos/as experienced heightened levels of discrimination and had worse outcomes than the sample overall. Additionally, the findings reveal that immigration status also plays a role in these outcomes, with non-citizen Latino/a respondents often reporting even worse experiences.

“This study shows how devastating multiple discrimination is for Latino and Latina transgender people,” says LULAC Executive Director Brent Wilkes. “We are committed to ensuring that all people, regardless of race, sexual orientation and gender identity are respected and treated fairly. We call upon other Latino groups to join us as we fight for the right of transgender people to live without fear of discrimination, harassment or violence. We will not stand idly by in a society where equality is not within everyone’s reach.”

Among the key findings from the report: Latino/a transgender people had a very high unemployment rate at 20 percent, higher than the overall transgender sample (14 percent) and nearly three times the rate of the general population at the time the survey was fielded (seven percent).

Latino/a transgender people often live in extreme poverty with 28 percent reporting a household income of less than $10,000/year. This is nearly double the rate for transgender people of all races (15 percent), over five times the general Latino/a population rate (5 percent), and seven times the general U.S. population rate (4 percent). The rate for Latino/a noncitizen respondents was 43 percent.

Latino/a transgender people are affected by HIV in devastating numbers. One in 12 Latino/a respondents was HIV-positive and an additional 10 percent reported that they did not know their status.

Forty-seven percent of Latino/a respondents reported having attempted suicide.

“This report is a critical call to action,” says Rea Carey, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. “The numbers make clear the way that racism, anti-immigrant and anti-transgender bias all work together,

often with devastating results in the lives of Latino and Latina transgender people.

We must ensure that we continue to work toward an LGBT movement that prioritizes immigration, racial and economic justice.”

Also among the findings: Latino/a respondents who attended school as transgender people reported alarming rates of harassment (77 percent), physical assault (36 percent) and sexual assault (13 percent) in K-12; harassment was so severe that it led 21 percent to leave school. Nine percent were also expelled due to bias.

Twenty-seven percent of Latino/a respondents said they had experienced homelessness at some point in their lives, nearly four times the rate of the general U.S. population (7.4 percent).

Twenty-three percent of Latino/a transgender people reported being refused medical care due to bias.

“This report paints a devastating picture of the treatment of our Latino and Latina transgender brothers and sisters who, on a daily basis, endure extreme poverty, unemployment and discrimination just to live out their full lives,” says Mara Keisling, executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality. “We have long known that race and citizenship status have a very real impact on transgender people. And for the first time, we can identify in specific terms, what these painful realities are. Documented or not, these numbers tell us that the LGBT movement must have an immigrant-inclusive agenda.”

Poll: vast majority of Americans backs transgender rights Overwhelming majorities of Americans, across the political and religious spectrum, believe that transgender people should have the same general rights and legal protections as other people, a 2011 survey found.

The August and September ’11 Religion and Politics Tracking Surveys were conducted by Public Religion Research Institute and released amid the increased attention towards transgender issues following Chaz Bono’s appearance on ABC’s “Dancing with the Stars”. The combined surveys constitute one of the first independent studies of attitudes on transgender issues and Americans’ knowledge of transgender identity.

“Three out of four Americans say Congress should pass employment nondiscrimination laws that protect transgender people,” said Dr. Robert P. Jones, CEO of Public Religion Research Institute. “This strong support is also broad, persisting across party lines and the religious spectrum.”

Approximately three-quarters (74 percent) of Americans also favor Congress’ recent expansion of hate crimes legislation to protect transgender people. Additionally, the survey found that roughly twothirds of Americans both report being well informed about transgender people

and issues, and generally understand what the term “transgender” means, the new survey finds.

“To explore whether Americans know what the term ‘transgender’ means, we allowed them to define ‘transgender’ in their own words,” said Daniel Cox, PRRI Research Director. “More than two-thirds of Americans were able to give an essentially accurate definition of the term ‘transgender’ without any assistance.”

Among the findings: Overwhelming majorities of Americans agree that transgender people should have the same general rights and legal protections as others.

Approximately 9-in-10 (89 percent) of Americans — including strong majorities of all religious and partisan groups — agree that transgender people deserve the same rights and protections as other Americans.

Approximately three-quarters of Americans both say Congress should pass employment nondiscrimination laws to protect transgender people, and favor Congress’s recent expansion of hate crimes legislation to protect transgender people.

Three-quarters (75 percent) of Americans agree that Congress should pass laws to protect transgender people from job discrimination. This support persists across the political and religious spectrum.

Approximately three-quarters (74 percent) of Americans also favor Congress’ recent expansion of federal hate crime laws to include crimes committed on the basis of the victim’s gender, sexual orientation or gender identity, compared to only 22 percent who oppose.

Approximately two-thirds of Americans both report being well informed about transgender people and issues, and generally understand what the term “transgender” means.

Two-thirds of Americans agree that they feel well informed about transgender persons and issues, while 3-in-10 disagree.

In order to determine whether Americans understood the term “transgender,” PRRI conducted a follow-up survey in September 2011 that asked respondents to report what the term “transgender” meant to them in their own words. Among the 91 percent of Americans who report that they have heard of the term transgender, 76 percent give an essentially accurate definition. Thus, overall, more than twothirds (69 percent) of Americans are able to identify what the term “transgender” means without any assistance.

To read the topline questionnaire and survey methodology, go to: http://publicreligion.org/research/american-attitudes-towards-transgender-people Both the August and the September Religion and Politics Tracking Surveys were designed and conducted by Public Religion Research Institute. Results of the August survey were based on random digit dial telephone survey of 1,006 adults conducted between August 11, 2011 and August 14, 2011. Results of the September survey were based on random digit dial telephone survey of 1,013 adults (301 were

FEBRUARY 2012 • number 453 • gay alliance of the genesee valley • the empty closet reached by cell phone) conducted between September 14, 2011 and September 18, 2011. The margin of error for both surveys is +/- 3.0 percentage points.

Public Religion Research Institute is a non-profit, nonpartisan research and education organization dedicated to work at the intersection of religion, values and public life.

WPATH sets new standards for transgender healthcare

By Mike Andrew (distributed by Healthy Living News) The World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) released Standards of Care for the Health of Transsexual, Transgender, and Gender Nonconforming People on Sept. 25, 2011.

WPATH launched the seventh version of its standards of care with some 300 people in attendance at an Atlanta, Georgia symposium. The event was a partnership between WPATH, the Gay and Lesbian Medical Association, and the Southern Comfort Conference, the country’s largest Trans people conference.

Activist Marsha Botzer, a WPATH board member since 1984, was on the revision committee. She also chaired an international advisory committee charged with gathering input from different cultures to get a non-Western, non-European viewpoint. “This is a dynamic change, a really powerful change in the way providers relate to Trans people,” Botzer noted.

“The standards have moved from being guidelines that meet the needs of providers to guidelines that meet the needs of Trans people themselves.

“The [Transgender] community has been pretty angry with the standards over the years -- they were so restrictive,” Botzer added. “The current crop of providers really get it -- that they have to serve the community.”

As the document of reference on car-

ing for the transsexual, transgender, and gender nonconforming population, the newly-revised standards will help health professionals understand how they can offer the most effective care. The standards include recommendations on primary, gynecologic and urologic care, reproductive options, mental health services, and hormonal and surgical treatment.

Revision committee chair Eli Coleman announced the new standards at the symposium. “This is a momentous occasion,” Coleman said before he went into a brief explanation of the standards of care.

“This was a very, very important task.

Just the title is a fundamental change you do not see Gender Identity Disorder,” Coleman said to a round of applause.

“We’ve made a clear statement that gender nonconformity is not pathological,” a statement greeted with another round of applause from attendees.

“We’ve set a whole different tone. It’s more about what the professionals have to do.” It’s not about Transgender people having to prove their health needs to the professionals, he explained.

“This is no longer about hormones and surgery; it’s about health in a holistic sense,” Coleman said.

Among the changes in the new standards, psychotherapy is no longer a requirement to receive hormones and surgery, although it is suggested. Also, a number of community health centers in the U.S. have developed protocols for providing hormone therapy based on the Informed Consent Model. WPATH’s new standards of care are now consistent with these protocols.

There are now different standards for surgery as well. For example, a Transgender man who wants a hysterectomy no longer has to live one year as a male in order to receive the surgery. Likewise, a Transgender woman who wants her testicles removed does not have to live one year as a female. For people who want genital reconstructive surgery, however,

the standards of care recommend living a year in the role of the gender they are transitioning to.

The new standards also allow for a broader spectrum of identities, in contrast to the binary “male” or “female” choice.

Walter Bockting, the outgoing president of WPATH, said in an interview before the launch event that the new standards represent a significant departure from the past six versions -- the original version was published in 1979 with revisions made in 1980, 1981, 1990, 1998, and 2001.

“Some of the changes we’ve made really incorporate the latest science,” Bockting said. “Research in this area is really increasing, so it is still a growing area, but there has been a boom in research publications. Our standards of care are more evidence-based.”

Bockting added that the new WPATH standards of care also show the tremendous efforts of Transgender people themselves to ensure their access to healthcare.

“Oftentimes the standards of care were perceived as a barrier even though they were meant as access to care for hormone therapy and surgery,” he said.

“The new standards showcase the important role [Transgender and gendernonconforming people] have played in changing the landscape of Transgender health in the U.S.,” Bockting added.

Mike Andrews is a writer for Seattle Gay News

Hate yes, cookies no: Rightwing bigots attack trans Girl Scouts The ultra-rightwing site World Net Daily is promoting a boycott of Girl Scout cookies over the organization’s policy of allowing transgender girls to join.

After controversy arose over the potential admission of Colorado seven-year-old Bobby Montoya last month, The Girl Scouts of Colorado released a statement

5 explaining, “We accept all girls in kindergarten through 12th grade as members. If a child identifies as a girl and the child’s family presents her as a girl, Girl Scouts of Colorado welcomes her as a Girl Scout.”

Rachelle Trujillo, vice president for communications of the Colorado Girl Scouts, added, “If a child is living as a girl, that’s good enough for us. We don’t require any proof of gender.”

According to a report in the Baptist Press, Trujillo also affirmed transgendered children are currently serving in Girl Scout troops across the U.S., though she declined to give details.

The boycott is being spearheaded by a 14-year old Girl Scouts member, who posted a YouTube clip the first week in January. Supporters of transgender children have dominated the comments for the WND article.

-joemygod.com

Civil unions went into effect in Hawaii, Delaware on Jan. 1 The New Year brought new opportunities for same-sex couples living in Delaware and Hawaii, where civil union laws went into effect after midnight. This brings the total number of states that allow such unions to five.

Four couples were quick to take advantage in Honolulu and registered their relationships soon after the ball dropped.

“We really don’t want to wait any longer because we have been together for 33 years waiting for the opportunity and our rights and everything that goes with it,” said Donna Gedge, as she and partner Monica Montgomery entered their union.

“So why wait?”

Montgomery remarked, “[This] means that our state supports us, and that’s a really good feeling after all this time.”

Delaware’s law went into effect Jan. 1 at 10 a.m., and lawyers Lisa Goodman Cival unions continues page 6

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page one (Trans panel continued from page 3) ents that really talks about, and gives parents the words to talk about, the range of possibilities for their child, and lets the child grow into its own. I want to change society, not just put people into different boxes… I want to blow up the boxes.”

Kelly also said, in response to another question, that trans people of color are among the most at risk of violence and that they may be mistreated simply because, for instance, they can’t afford a new razor that month and so have some facial hair – which can cause supposedly well-informed people to insist that they are male when in reality they are female, and to treat them unfairly and inappropriately.

Audience members had questions like “What is ‘cis’?”, referring to the term “cisgendered.”

Deb explained that it is a “module for someone who identifies with their assigned gender.” It describes anyone not in the gender variant community.

Another audience member said, “Discourse always centers on ‘how I got to be this way’ and why I differ from an ordinary person. I’d rather talk about where I should go. Do you find that a limitation or can you change the discourse?”

Pam Barres said she used to waste time worrying about “how I got here.” She said, “Finally I came to a place where I don’t care how I got here – I just care what I am and I want to go in a direction of letting people know who we are.”

Another person in the audience said, “It’s a process and that’s where support people need to come in. I got to the point where I accepted that I can’t change other people, but have to live my own life. And that can be a model for other people.”

Christopher Argyros ended the session by talking about how to advocate for the passage of GENDA, which would simply add transgender people to the protections already existing in New York human rights and hate crimes laws. It would establish trans people as an established, valid class of citizens deserving equal civil rights. The bill has already passed the Assembly four times and Governor Cuomo is willing to sign it. But the Republican-controlled Senate will not allow the bill onto the floor for a vote.

Christopher said that those wishing to lobby their legislators, or speak in favor of

the empty closet • the gay alliance of the genesee valley • number 453 • FEBRUARY 2012 GENDA to anyone, need to “keep it simple and stay within our frame of ‘everyone should be treated equally and fairly by the laws of our state.’”

Supporters of GENDA also should remind people of the core values of fairness, equality and opportunity; avoid engaging in debates with unrealistic hypotheses; avoid ‘trans lingo’ and explain issues clearly; appeal to fairness and compassion; create a mental picture by referring to specific stories or examples; clarify that opponents’ claims are not rooted in fact and that their dire, hysterical scenarios of what will happen if trans people gain equal rights have never occurred anywhere in the country where trans people have civil rights protections. ■ (Coming up continues from page 1) gift basket raffle and more. Friends, family and allies of all ages are welcome.

Free parking is available in the lot on College St., between Goodman and Prince.

Coming up in March: the Gay Alliance presents the North East Regional Prides (NERP) Conference on March 10.

The conference will include a community dinner, show and dance, featuring wellknown entertainers, a silent auction, door prizes and a cash bar.

The action happens at the Radisson Rochester Riverside from 6-11 p.m. Dinner, show and dance are $45; $20 for show and dance only. For updates, see the March Empty Closet and go to www.GayAlliance.org where advance tickets will also be available. All proceeds will benefit Rochester Pride 2012, July 6-15. ■

national and international (Civil unions continued from page 5) and Drewry Fennell were the first couple to take advantage of that during a ceremony at Wilmington’s Trinity Episcopal Church. The couple, who have been together for 14 years, were joined by 400 family and friends, including Senator Chris Coons, who delivered the accompanying sermon. Lieutenant Gov. Matt Denns read some scripture.

“We felt so lifted up by everyone who was there,” Goodman told CBS News.

It is worth mentioning that both the Hawaii and the Delaware laws are explicit in noting that unions are not the same as marriage. “It is not the legislature’s intent to revise the definition or eligibility

requirements of marriage,” read the laws.

While this is a notable win for equality, it’s only the first step toward true nuptial inclusion, said Towleroad.com.

Read more: http://www.towleroad.com/2012/01/civil-unions-gointo-effect-in-hawaii-and-delaware. html#ixzz1iQ1nSKWY

GOP hypocrites, bigots distinguish themselves…

Columnist Maureen Dowd wrote in the New York Times on Jan. 8, “New Hampshire’s feisty voters don’t seem as enraptured with Santorum’s rigid conservatism and sweater vests as evangelical voters in Iowa were. Many are pushing back on the wacky worldview of Senator Slash, as Santorum was once known for his vicious attacks on Bill Clinton and other Democrats. He bashes President Obama as a European-style socialist and preaches fiscal conservatism.

“Yet in the Senate, he made sure dollars from the socialistic Medicare program went to Puerto Rico on behalf of a hometown firm — United Health Services — that later gave him nearly $400,000 in director’s fees and stock options. He was among the pay-for-play Republicans who tried to strong-arm lobbyists and say that if you wanted to have influence you had to cough up campaign money. While Karen Santorum was home-schooling their seven children in Virginia, Santorum soaked the Pennsylvania taxpayers to the tune of $100,000 by enrolling the children in a Pennsylvania cyber charter school.”

A Romney group, meanwhile, is escalating attacks on Santorum over wasteful spending. The New York Times investigated some of the earmarks in question, and found that Santorum gave out a lot of them, and that they often yielded campaign contributions. For example, Santorum helped secure a $3.5 million military (GOP hypocrites continue on page 9)

FEBRUARY 2012 • number 453 • gay alliance of the genesee valley • the empty closet

Interview Jim Costich

By Susan Jordan “We cannot become what we might have been if we hadn’t been born intersexed. We have to be what we are today.”

–Jim Costich Jim Costich is an activist for intersexed rights, and as someone with experience in the medical/healthcare field, he is especially well informed about the complex medical issues connected with intersex and with all forms of gender variance.

What is intersex?

Jim says, “Intersex is a term used to identify people whose bodies vary from or combine some aspects of what are considered male or female. Intersexed people are in some ways both male and female, and in some ways not either. There are many different origins of intersex, from genetic anomalies, to hormone exposure in utero, to the inability to process hormones.”

He notes, “Medicine never created males or females out of the intersexed. It merely created intersexed people who have been surgically and hormonally altered to look something like males or females.”

However, the medical establishment has created a profitable industry which claims to solve intersexed people’s identity problems with a flourish of the scalpel – and without consulting them.

Jim says, “I have a friend born in Israel who went to live in the United Kingdom and she is an extreme example of being both male and female and neither at the same time. She had one ovary and one testicle, and she also had a bunch of health problems. She had CAH and was a ‘salt waster’ – meaning she couldn’t hold salt in her body because of lacking a particular enzyme. Salt wasters can excrete all the salt in their bodies and be dead within days. But all the doctors care about is that penis or vagina. So the individual’s medical condition is sometimes misdiagnosed or ignored.

“My friend was only ‘allowed’ half of her anatomy – because it said ‘female’ on her birth certificate – so she was not treated for her male-health-related problems.”

Jim himself experienced medical mistreatment in his youth. “I had a much better understanding of myself as a gay man than I had as being intersexed,” he said.

Referring to his past, Jim said, “I’m 14 years old. I have osteoporosis. I have stopped growing and also have anemia due to hypogonadism. In other words, my gonads aren’t making adult hormones in sufficient quantities and health problems arise which have nothing to do with gender or reproduction. Really bad things happen.

“Endrocrinology is the field of study of hormones,” Jim continued. “Medically, it’s putting our hormones back into shape when they’re out of shape. Not just sex hormones, but also involving diabetes and other conditions. My dad wanted to take me to an endocrinologist here, but my mother wanted me to go to a place in Buffalo. By the time I got out of there I was suicidal.

“Then my father’s doctor in Rochester became the first person who cared about me as a person. He asked me, ‘Do you want to be a male or a female? You have to have hormones in order to grow up – so which do you want to be?’ I felt like Peter Pan – everyone was growing up and I wasn’t. I chose male and he gave me my first shot.

After all I had been through, all I needed was a shot.

“If the doctor hadn’t been in the U.S., he couldn’t have asked me that question.

He would have had to sign on to a protocol about ‘what we do with intersexed kids.’ He would have made the decision for me and would have chosen that I be female and have surgery, because that type of surgery would have been easier for them.

So they often choose for intersexed people to be female, although that means dosing them for years with estrogen, which sometimes causes cancer.

“So this had nothing to do with medicine. It was about making us go away.

Intersexed people have been erased.”

Most LGBT people are familiar with the European/American heterosexist belief that there are only two gender choices – either John Wayne or Marilyn Monroe.

Anyone who doesn’t show the “correct” body parts or behavior associated with their genitalia is a “social emergency” and must be immediately forced to conform to one or the other gender stereotype. How many genders are there really? The Dineh (Navajo) tradition is that there are four genders – male, female, masculine female and feminine male.

For more information: • http://media01.commpartners.com/AMA/sexual identity jan 2011/index.html • Oiiusa.org (one of the smaller organizations) • Oiiau.org (much bigger and better) • Intersexualite.org • Bodieslikeours.org (a site by, for and of intersexed people only, in the U.S. Non-intersexed input is not welcome here.)

A video documentary, INTERSEXION, taped in 2007 by a New Zealand company, which interviewed intersex people all over the world, including Jim Costich. It was just released but has not yet been distributed. To view it now, go to: www.intersexions.org

2012 2012 2012

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Jim Costich. Photo: Susan Jordan

Jim says, “One scientist claims there are five genders or sexes. The real question is not, ‘Is there a third gender?’ I think it is ‘Are there two sexes?’ The Bible says God created male AND female – not male OR female. We are all male and female in different proportions. We develop out of the same beginning. Any variety of things can affect that development, but we are considered either ‘absolutely male’ or ‘absolutely female’, and anything in between must be corrected. They can’t admit that there could be a woman capable of impregnating her girlfriend, or a man capable of carrying a baby.

“Most intersex people are not fertile, but some are. But their fertility doesn’t always match the gender they appear to be. If a person has one ovary and one testicle, and for whatever reason one isn’t canceling the other out, that person could be fertile. There are girls, for instance, with partial androgen insensitivity syndrome, who could have a testicle that works, and they can produce sperm. Why should she lose her fertility because men are uptight about women’s power? There is a compulsion to amputate everything that’s feminine – cut it out and throw it away – and that’s living in a heterosexist and heterocentrist fantasy world. Why should any of us put up with that?

“It’s a world that says ‘Men are always (fill in the blank) and women are always (fill in the blank) and no one should cross lines. If anyone does, then they DON’T EXIST. But we do exist…

“Our problem is the John Money syndrome. He was a psychologist who spread the idea that everyone is a blank slate when born and all you have to do to make someone male or female is to lie to them and

their parents, assign them an identity and back it up with surgery. This gives the surgeon money and power and creates a demand for sexual reassignment surgery done on children. John Money created a megabusiness for himself in the 1960s.

“Part of the reason this hadn’t been done earlier was because there was no anesthesia that could safely knock a baby out.

But now there is. So Money could tell parents that they ‘should’ raise their babies as girls (or boys). He went on to sell this in Australia, New Zealand, the UK and finally at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore by the 1970s. There were people doing this kind of surgery and hurting intersexed children.

“Then a British reporter in the early 1990s dug into one of Money’s early cases and found out that Money knew that his surgery had failed. One baby he had defined as a girl and built a vagina for insisted by age five that he was a boy, not a girl. But cases like that could be ignored because the practice was not to follow these children after age three.”

And who listens to a five-year-old? Or even a 15-year-old? Our society doesn’t even listen to a 55-year-old who says something mainstream heterosexist culture doesn’t want to hear about gender identity – or sexual orientation.

“Gender dysphoria” is the term that has been used by the medical establishment, which sees intersexed babies as a “social emergency.” Jim says, “This is an INDUSTRY. It’s a ripoff. It’s not good medicine, it’s good ‘MONEY.’” He adds, “Nobody knows whether or not they are intersexed. I’m only talking about the body. But one person out of every (Interview continues page 8)

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interview ( Interview continued from page 7) 100 has some characteristic which is unrelated to the gender they’ve been told they are, based on their genitalia. One out of every 2,000 has genital organs that can’t be described as male or female. It’s called ‘ambiguous genitals’ – that’s just a describer, not something that should be judged.

“People who say that intersex or transgender is against God’s plan should talk to veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan. Street bombs rip off soldiers’ penises – are they women now? There is more to being a woman or a man than genitalia.

“Being intersexed is first about being your physical body. We are born between the sexes, we have parts that are male- or female-like. There are many reasons for being intersexed, not the least of which is toxic pollution. There are also genetic

the empty closet • the gay alliance of the genesee valley • number 453 • FEBRUARY 2012 causes. Genes are switches that can turn on or not, and there are lots of things that interfere with the switches.

“Then we have the new field of epigenetics. The gene may say one thing, but whether the body decides to copy the gene or not is determined by external influences.”

What do intersexed people want?

Jim says, “We want: to live in our own bodies. To have self determination and definition. To figure out our own gender. For our parents to have complete information about intersex and access to group counseling for unexpected birth outcomes.

“What we don’t want: surgery or hormones without our informed consent. To be assigned a gender and labeled as gender dysphoric if we don’t agree. For the medical profession to pathologize our gender while ignoring our health problems. For our parents to be lied to, mislead, and isolated from other parents with intersexed children.” ■

FEBRUARY 2012 • number 453 • gay alliance of the genesee valley • the empty closet

national and international (GOP hypocrites continued from page 6) contract for JLG Industries in 2005.

The next year, executives from JLG gave Santorum’s campaign $6,000. According to Tax Payers for Common Sense, Santorum gave out over $1 billion in earmarks during his 11-year Senate career. (The New York Times, Jan. 16, 2012) Rick Santorum, although he won in Iowa, lost big in New Hampshire and was in fact booed on Jan. 5 after comparing marriage equality to polygamy. According to the New York Times, while answering a question about marriage equality, Santorum said: “If you’re not happy unless you’re married to five other people, is that O.K.?”

The audience booed Santorum, who continued on, saying, “What about three men?” …Audience members continued booing Santorum as he exited the event.

“Rick Santorum’s anti-gay hate is not going to perform well in New Hampshire. His reception there is indicative of just how poorly he will fare with mainstream voters as the primaries progress,” said Human Rights Campaign President Joe Solmonese. “Rick Santorum’s views are out of step with the majority of Americans across demographics and faiths. He is basing his campaign on bashing an entire community of his fellow Americans. That may serve him well with certain constituencies, but it’s something most Americans will not stand for.”

Santorum has a long track record of trying to score political points by bashing LGBT people. In addition to speaking out against marriage equality on a regular basis, he also has criticized LGBT families and adoption, and called the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT) a means of forcing “social policy into the military.”

Last fall, Santorum told a gay soldier he would reinstate DADT because “any type of sexual activity has absolutely no place

in the military.” (He did not comment on the very high rate of heterosexual rape of female service members.)

Republicans aren’t racist…

Meanwhile, the GOP speaker of the Kansas House has sent out an email prayer for the death of President Obama.

“Imprecatory prayers” are usually seen from far-right preachers, not politicians.

The Journal-World revealed that Speaker O’Neal had forwarded an email which referenced the Bible verse Psalm 109:8, which reads: “Let his days be few; and let another take his office.” The very next verse adds: “Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow.” The verse became a conservative meme in 2009 after it began appearing on bumper stickers, t-shirts and even toys. The most common slogan was, “Pray for Obama: Psalm 109:8.”

“At last — I can honestly voice a Biblical prayer for our president!” O’Neal wrote. “Look it up — it is word for word!

Let us all bow our heads and pray. Brothers and Sisters, can I get an AMEN? AMEN!!!!!!”

Another email from O’Neal, for which he has since half-heartedly apologized, referred to the First Lady (whom he would like to see widowed) as “Mrs. YoMama” and compared her appearance to Dr. Suess’ Grinch.

Washington governor endorses marriage equality; hearings start Washington United for Marriage, a broad statewide coalition of organizations, congregations, unions and business associations that will work to obtain civil marriage for lesbian and gay couples in Washington State in 2012, on Jan. 4 applauded Gov. Christine Gregoire for her landmark comments and endorsement of marriage equality in the Evergreen State.

“Governor Gregoire made crystal clear ( Washington continues on page 14)

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the empty closet • the gay alliance of the genesee valley • number 453 • FEBRUARY 2012

Making the Scene cation and services to reduce risk. The 2012 beneficiaries have yet to be named.

Naming the beneficiaries is just one of the agenda items for Scotty and his planning committee as they begin the task of organizing the 2012 concert. Since the goal is for 100 percent of the ticket sales to go to the beneficiaries, Scotty and the BELIEVING THE DREAM: Youth speakers from Safe Sex Inc. at the annual World AIDS Day concert on Dec. 1. Proceeds benefited the group. Photos: Jeff Mills

RIT/NTID Dance Company performs at the WAD concert.

Plans already underway for World AIDS Day 2012

By Lora C. Thody It may seem like December is a long way off now, but for Scotty Ginett, the organizer of the World AIDS Day Benefit Concert in Rochester, planning has already begun. Focused on what can be done, rather than the obstacles, Scotty strives to be a positive influence in the community and give back to it every year.

The WAD concert for 2011 was held at Hochstein on Dec. 1 -- World AIDS Day. The concert was the last in a series of events sponsored for the day by the University of Rochester Medical Center Developmental Center for AIDS Research (D-CFAR) and other community groups.

The day’s events included scientific presentations, a symposium and a candlelight vigil.

Proceeds benefit a variety of groups – this past year proceeds went to Safe Sex Inc., a student-run organization that is partnered with AIDS Care, the City of Rochester and Metro Council for Teen Potential. Safe Sex helps youth and teens to make informed decisions regarding health and sexuality in the forms of edu-

WAD concert organizers Carrie Vernon, Scotty Ginett and Michael Hardy.

committee must find sponsors to cover all of the overhead for the event. Some sponsors provide monetary donations, others donate services for the cause. Scotty’s goal of covering the overhead was achieved in 2011 and he hopes to repeat that for 2012.

While the performers volunteer their efforts, the venue, setup and advertising can cost a substantial amount, which is where the sponsor funds fill the gap.

For Scotty, organizing the event in 2011 was a satisfying experience and a chance to reach out and make a difference in the community. As a pianist and singer, Scotty volunteered his time to sing at the 2008 concert, organized by Thomas Warfield, the founder of PeaceArt and of the annual WAD concerts. Since that time, Scotty has been involved in organizing the concert and has now taken over the reins from Warfield. Scotty’s joy in this pursuit stems from his knowledge that the organization and the work are about people coming together to try to

change the world for the better – and succeeding in doing so.

As part of his planning, Scotty has expanded the visibility of the concert by adding a Facebook page. Scotty and the planning committee will choose a theme for this year’s concert – last year’s was

The Unity Fellowship Church choir, Sh’cheenah Glory of Voices Praise, sang at the WAD concert. Front row: Christopher Coles (ASL interpreter and choir member) and friend. Back row: Lisa Bennett, Rasheida Bennett, Alliah Bennett, Mildred Portella and Gwen Ashford.

Rochester City Councilmembers Elaine Spaull and Matt Haag read a proclamation at the WAD concert.

“Believing the Dream” – and will focus on obtaining volunteer performers as well as on securing a venue, arranging for equipment and staff, and securing sponsorship to cover the costs.

You can Like the organization on Facebook – World AIDS Day Benefit Concert-doing the [positive] thing – donate time in planning the concert, or contact the program for information about sponsorship.

My Own Private Rochester: Chip McDaniel

By Susan Jordan Chip McDaniel is a longtime member of the Rochester Rams M.C., and works at DePaul Development Services. Born and raised in Canisteo, about 75 miles south of Rochester, he has lived in many places and settled in Rochester in January 1997.

Chip says, “This past year I have been an associate member of the Rams – I stepped down for a while because I had so much work in 2011. We opened a new group home, for people with Prater-Willi Syndrome. That’s when the chemical signals to the stomach don’t make it to the brain, so people are always hungry and eat non-stop.

“I’ve had to learn about many disabilities. I used to work at (the former) AIDS Rochester, and then for the Health Association. When DePaul bought out the Health Association, I worked on holistic therapies for HIV. Then when HAART lost its funding, I was transferred to developmental disabilities. I’m currently assistant director.”

The Rams brotherhood is clearly the community group Chip feels closest to.

He also likes RGMC and the Gay Alliance Youth Group. “When it comes to volunteering and donating,” he says, “I choose the Youth Group. I also tend to be the person who sells 50/50 raffle tickets at the Forum in fundraisers for groups, which include Isaiah House and AIDSCare. They say, ‘Let Chip do it!’” The Rams also stage a toy drive every year for the Newark Children’s Center.

Chip at Outlandish.

Chip’s favorite Rochester-area event is the Lumberjack Festival in Macedon every fall. He notes, “I grew up in the country and unfortunately I know how to use an axe. My father would have me out at 6 a.m. when I came home from a night out and I had to chop wood – that was my punishment! I’m not really big on festivals and prefer private events and parties at my friends’ houses.”

Chip does like to hang out at the Bachelor Forum, the home bar of the Rams, and he works part time at Outlandish, more because he loves the store and its people than because he needs the extra job. He likes to eat at the Southwedge Diner (between Meigs and Goodman) because of their good brunches. But his very favorite restaurants are Shea’s and the Delmonico Steak House in Henrietta.

Chip’s favorite local sports team is the

Chip at the Forum. Photos: Susan Jordan

Rhinos, and he has also been to a Nighthawks game, but he says he is not a “big sports person”. He loves music, and names the Ruby Shoes from the southern tier as his favorite local rock group. His favorite kinds of music are country/western and Broadway musicals. Chip jokes, “That’s the one gay gene I’ve got – I’ve enjoyed ‘Wicked’ and ‘Miss Saigon’ at the RBTL’s Auditorium Theatre, and I go to the Nazareth Arts Center. Most recently I saw Sondheim’s ‘Into the Woods.’ I’m a musical theatre nut and want to see a lot more in 2012, since I’ll have more free time.”

What is it about Rochester that makes it special to Chip? He says, “I’ve lived all

over the world and one reason I love Rochester and decided to buy a house and stay is because it’s a city, but not too big. It’s very open. The Rochester community, despite our infighting, is a very proactive community in a lot of different ways. You have infighting, but when push comes to shove, you band together. That’s what I liked.

“Home has been Canisteo, and Rochester is the first other place I’ve lived in that felt like home. I was in the military and served in Germany, so I got to travel to Spain and other places in Europe. I lived in Texas for years and was a police officer in a small Texas town in the ‘80s – until I was thrown out for being gay!”

FEBRUARY 2012 • number 453 • gay alliance of the genesee valley • the empty closet

TRANS PANEL: Panelists at the GAGV Jan. 12 forum on transgender issues: L-R: Deb Oppenheimer, Jane Marie (hidden), Maur DeLaney, Kelly Clark. Photo: Jim Wilkins

ALESI FUNDRAISER: On Jan. 11 Tim Tompkins and Mark Siwiec hosted a fundraiser for NYS Senator Jim Alesi. Left to right: Bess Watts, Senator Jim Alesi, Anne Tischer, Jo Meleca-Voigt and Ove Overmyer. Photo: Christine Meleca-Voigt.

HOLIDAY SONGBOOK: The Rochester Gay Men’s Chorus presented its winter concert on Dec. 2 and 3 at Hochstein. One highlight was a Rochettes number depicting a battle between Santa and a rather elegant eight-armed bug and cohorts. Santa is saved by reindeer in pink ballerina skirts... well, you had to be there. Photos: Jeff Mills

CONGRATULATIONS: NYS Assemblymember Harry Bronson congratulates Bess Watts and Anne Tischer on their latest award at the Rochester Labor Council Awards Dinner on Dec. 8. (See story on page 3.) Photo: Ove Overmyer

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ASL interpreter Cat Hardesty and RGMC Musical Director Dr. Robert Strauss. RGMC will host a speeddating event on Feb. 22 (see Arts & Entertainment, page 27).

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the empty closet • the gay alliance of the genesee valley • number 453 • FEBRUARY 2012

Opinion Why we aren’t a real LGBT community yet

By Dr. Jillian T. Weiss Several years ago, I wrote an article entitled “GL versus BT: The Archaeology of Biphobia and Transphobia Within the U.S. Gay and Lesbian Community” for the Journal of Bisexuality’s special 2003 issue called InterSEXions Of The Others. I was pleased to receive a call from the Journal noting that the article was one of the top downloads cited from their site, and requesting an “HRC: Equal or Less Than?” reflective paper on how subsequent events have impacted the issues I discussed.

The original paper made the point that heterosexism against bisexuals and transgenders exists not only in the straight community but in the gay and lesbian community as well. Are “biphobia” and “transphobia” examples of “phobias” -irrational fears?

No, such heterosexist attitudes are all too rational, mirroring social tensions, which only appear to be an ahistorical psychological phenomenon. Rather, as the gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender (GLBT) community developed, power relations arose which resulted in the four different groups (G/L/B/T), assigning them different social locations. Prejudice in gay and lesbian communities against bisexuals and transgenders is heterosexism because it is, among other things, an accommodationist attempt to discover these more “radical” forms of sexuality.

This idea that the issue is one of power relations stands in contrast to other popular beliefs about the divide between gays and lesbians, on the one hand, and bisexuals and transgenders on the other, such as the idea that it is related to phobias, insufficient education, elitism, a smaller number of bisexual and transgender people, or that bisexual and transgender people are insufficiently politically active.

My new paper reflects on developments since 2003, making the point that it is still true, though to a lesser extent, that bisexual and transgender people are, on the one hand, considered far too queer by some gay political elites, whereas others are considered not queer enough. You could call it “the Goldilocks problem.”

Only a very few of our LGBT community are “just right.” We’re not all DINKS or the right race or gender or age or class to be put on a poster for gay rights, though those overflowing with money to contribute often are and want to see themselves reflected in the movement they’re giving money to. How do you run a movement when your marketing scheme conflicts with the product?

I see these problems as political, as power relations, and as a reluctance of gay

elites to share with bisexuals and transgenders and queers the hardwon victories that had been achieved by gay efforts and gay money (despite the mythology of a Stonewall Rebellion run largely by drag queens and transsexuals). The word homonormative springs to mind.

I cite, as evidence for this, the ENDA debacles of 2007 and 2009, and the concentration on Don’t Ask Don’t Tell repeal, which used an intentional strategy of leaving out transgender service members altogether. A social justice movement cannot be founded on social injustice and expect to survive. This is particularly ironic in light of the constant attempts to associate the gay rights struggle with the Black Civil Rights Movement. Some gay elites have had no problem glomming onto other movements, without concerns as to the important historical differences, such as the fact that gays were not enslaved for more than 250 years, nor subjected to legal and social racism and violence to the extreme degree faced by African Americans.

At the same time, incrementalism is decried in relation to marriage equality (no civil unions!) and bullying bills (as in the recent Michigan bill). And yet, there seems not to be a similar distaste among gay elites when it comes to leaving gender identity out of civil rights protections or lopping off “public accommodations” protections from gender identity bills.

True, there is an analogy to be made among civil rights movements, but it is an analogy that has severe limitations. Some have gone so far as to criticize President Obama for not doing more for gay rights based on the idea that, as a Black man, he has a higher standard than other politicians. He’s been called upon to “evolve already” with regard to marriage equality, but his unequalled political support for our community, including trans people for the first time in history, and his many accomplishments for us go unremarked.

This shows a distressing inconsistency in the gay rights movement, with some retaining gay-only organizations or being satisfied with LGB(fakeT) organizations, and yet decrying those in the Black civil rights movement who are not rushing to embrace the gay civil rights movement, even as people of color are still largely residentially, educationally and economically segregated. There is a difference between alliance and appropriation.

Are all of our justice movements shot through with hegemonist dreams?

If we fail to understand our community tensions as power relations, believing them instead to simply be the result of insufficient education, elitism, or phobias, then we will find ourselves unable to solve the puzzle of our continued fractionation and less-than-optimal political effectiveness.

Although many voices have been raised to point up these problems, the LGBT movement as a whole has yet to discover this in any meaningful way. I applaud those organizations and gay people who have discovered these issues and moved to address them. It is my hope that our LGBT civil rights movement will be able to put these problems in the past by recognizing the power relations at work, and using this understanding to create a genuinely universalizing movement, rather than a minoritizing movement.

(Originally posted on The Bilerico Project.)

State of the State

By Ross Levi, Executive Director, Empire State Pride Agenda We were thrilled (on Jan. 4) to hear Governor Andrew Cuomo highlight marriage equality so prominently in his State of the State address as one of the great accomplishments by state government in 2011. He said: “For decades, millions of New Yorkers had been treated as second-class citizens by their own government. We ended that injustice. … We passed marriage equality for ALL New Yorkers and we did it together.”

We were inspired by the prolonged and enthusiastic response from the audience to the mention of that momentous achievement. Clearly we have the wind at our back. 2012 holds real promise for

LGBT New Yorkers, but we have to commit to the hard work ahead or that promise will be hollow.

The dream of equality is not yet fulfilled – there is much more that needs to be done.

We’ve been working for years to pass a statewide law that explicitly protects New Yorkers from being fired, evicted or denied service in public accommodations because of how they express their gender.

All New Yorkers should be treated equally by the laws of the state, but until we pass a statewide transgender non-discrimination law, this is shamefully not the case.

The Governor talked about New York being a progressive leader for the nation; we need to catch up to the 16 other states that have passed this common sense legislation and maintain our state’s leadership on equality.

We must find a way to extend protections to the most vulnerable members of our community. Runaway youth, many of whom become homeless and are left with no option but to live on the streets, need our help. Other LGBT people need mental health or substance abuse services, or support as our community ages. We must make sure government is doing its part to address our community’s health and human services needs.

And don’t forget that in 2012 the entire state legislature will be up for election. The nation will be watching as those who made our ability to marry a reality seek re-election. As a community, we

FEBRUARY 2012 • number 453 • gay alliance of the genesee valley • the empty closet must flex our political muscle and stand by those who stood by us.

The State of the State for LGBT New Yorkers is in our hands. We have had significant victories, but without these critical next steps, the promise of equality will not be fulfilled.

We urge you to stand with us, and commit to taking action this year to ensure that our progress with New York State government continues. Whether it’s joining us in Albany for LGBT Equality & Justice Day on May 8, 2012, submitting your story about why New York needs protection for transgender New Yorkers via our TRANScribe project, or contacting your elected representatives to ensure government is addressing the health and human service needs of the LGBT community, your action will determine whether our win last year was just a feel-good moment, or the building block to lasting equality and justice for all LGBT New Yorkers. We look forward to continuing to partner with you to win more victories ahead!

Onward!

Tennis legend and ace bigot Margaret Court wants a pass for her homophobia

By Pam Spaulding The problem bigots have in 2012 is that they don’t like being labeled bigots, so they engage in public contortions to make it look like they are being victimized for opening their pieholes and saying racist/sexist/homophobic/transphobic garbage that is ludicrous.

Tennis legend (and now televangelist/ pastor of Victory Life Centre) Margaret Court can join the list of preposterous bigots looking for support after uttering homophobic trash. Let’s take a look at the statement in question that has stirred the controversy. Via the New York Times in December: “Politically correct education has masterfully escorted homosexuality out from behind closed doors, into the community openly and now is aggressively demanding marriage rights that are not theirs to take,” Court told the newspaper.

“There is no reason to put forward alternative, unhealthy, unnatural unions as some form of substitute,” she continued.

“To dismantle this sole definition of marriage and try to legitimize what God calls abominable sexual practices that include sodomy, reveals our ignorance as to the ills that come when society is forced to accept law that violates their very own God-given nature of what is right and what is wrong.”

Alrighty then. Does that sound a tad offensive in any way? Does Court think someone calling her abominable is just being neighborly? This drew threats of protest by LGBT groups at this month’s Australian Open, and drew the ire of fellow legends Billie Jean King and Martina

Navratilova: The retired tennis players and lesbian activists Billie Jean King and Martina Navratilova and the recently retired Australian doubles specialist Rennae Stubbs all voiced their disappointment and disapproval of Court’s words in interviews with the Tennis Channel’s James LaRosa.

“Her myopic view is truly frightening as well as damaging to the thousands of children already living in same-gender families,” Navratilova said.

Court then tossed off this jaw-dropping defense of her remarks (taking a page from the well-worn bigot handbook, 2011-2012 edition): “I remember, probably 10, 12 years ago, I spoke with Martina Navratilova. To say that I ‘hate’ homosexuals and lesbians is not [accurate] because we have them in our church. I work with them. And I remember saying to Martina: ‘Martina, I love you. God loves you. But a wrong doesn’t make a right.’ “…I make a stand for both my biblical side, and what I believe. And I think — it’s a choice. And I think there’s young people today that need to know it’s a choice in life. And that was my side of it, bringing that forth. I’ve got nothing against the people themselves, I’ve always said that all the years I’ve been a minister.”

FYI, this is not a one-time bigotry blast or “slip up”; Court has a long history of spewing anti-gay hate. You see, this is the basic defense gaining popularity — “I’m not a bigot, my crude, insensitive remarks are just me expressing my religious beliefs” — with the implication that any uproar about the bigotry is somehow a threat to their religious freedom.

It’s the kind of brain-dead, pious, pitiful thinking that is behind a bill in Tennessee, proposed by “Christian activist” and State Senator David Fowler (R) that would gut an anti-bullying bill with a loophole so that it would: “not be construed or interpreted to infringe upon the First Amendment rights of students and shall not prohibit their expression of religious, philosophical, or political views.”

In other words, unless the student just shows general contempt not based on anything in particular toward another student, it’s A-OK to bully for just about any reason. You can justify it if it’s a personal belief, based on, say, you don’t like kids in wheelchairs because you disagree with the Americans with Disabilities Act, or your church tells you gays are an abomination.

You know, that kinda thing.

People just need to own up to their bigotry and its impact on a civil society.

You can say anything you want, but sometimes there are social repercussions. With the rates of teen suicides due to incessant bullying based on real or perceived LGBT status or gender identity issues, it’s clear that words do matter.

And as far as Margaret Court goes, it’s just Too. Damn. Bad. if she doesn’t want the bigot label.

Originally posted on Pam’s House Blend.com (http://pamshouseblend.firedoglake.com/?p=24388)

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national and international ( Washington from page 9) why marriage equality matters and why the legislature should pass it this year,” said Zach Silk, campaign manager for Washington United for Marriage. “She has shown tremendous leadership on this issue which affects so many of our friends, family and neighbors.”

Gregoire clearly made the case of why marriage matters and the impact of having separate classifications of relationship recognition for lesbian and gay couples.

Thousands of families in Washington State will be impacted by the legislation, which would allow for civil marriage of lesbian and gay couples. Currently, these couples may register for a domestic partnership, which confers most of the rights and responsibilities of marriage, but does not recognize the love, commitment and devotion to family that marriage conveys.

“My partner and I have been together 22 years, and our family is very similar to those of my friends and colleagues,” said Jennifer Cast, a longtime Washington resident who wishes to marry. “We work hard to create a productive and happy life for ourselves and our family. We cherish the good times and console each other during hard times. We share each other’s challenges, sorrows, triumphs, and joys, just like any other couple. We want our love and commitment to be valued and recognized equally in our state.”

“When I tell people that Rudy and I have a domestic partnership, they really don’t understand what that means,” said John McCluskey, a longtime resident of Tacoma. “We’ve been together for 53 years and I couldn’t imagine spending my life with anyone else. The thought that people don’t understand that our family faces the same struggles and the same triumphs as any other family in our state is heartbreaking.”

At this time, six states plus the District

the empty closet • the gay alliance of the genesee valley • number 453 • FEBRUARY 2012 of Columbia recognize marriage for samesex couples under state law: Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, and Vermont. Nine states — California, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Nevada, New Jersey, Oregon, Rhode Island, and Washington — provide samesex couples with access to the state level benefits and responsibilities of marriage, through either civil unions or domestic partnerships. Same-sex couples do not receive federal rights and benefits in any state.

Joe Solmonese, president of the Human Rights Campaign, issued the following statement: “From coast to coast, more and more Americans are coming to appreciate the values they share with committed gay and lesbian couples: the desire to love, honor and protect the person they love. By voicing their strong support for marriage equality, Governors Gregoire and Cuomo propel this issue forward. They confirm what most Americans already believe: committed gay and lesbian couples deserve the ability to marry and establish families protected by law.”

New York State passed similar legislation last year, and on Jan. 4 Governor Cuomo listed it as one of his top accomplishments for 2011 in his annual “State of the State” address. Governor Cuomo said that prior to the passage of this legislation, gay and lesbian New Yorkers were treated as “second-class citizens by the government.”

Solmonese added, “It’s notable that both Governors are Catholics – a group that supports legal recognition of gay and lesbian couples by wide margins. According to the Public Religion Research Institute, Catholics are more supportive of legal recognition of gay couples than members of any other Christian tradition.

On the issue of allowing lesbian and gay couples to get a civil marriage license at city hall, 71 percent of American Catholics say they are in favor.”

Tacoma votes yes

By Laurel Ramseyer With an 8-0 vote the City of Tacoma on Tuesday became the first Washington municipality to officially endorse the passage of a marriage equality law by the state legislature this session. Tacoma is the third-largest city in Washington and the second-largest in the populous Puget Sound region.

The King County Council passed a similar motion with strong bipartisan support.

The endorsement came in the form of an amendment to the City of Tacoma’s Legislative Agenda, which is how the city communicates its priorities to the state legislature. The amendment was introduced by Councilmember Ryan Mello, who earlier in the evening began a new 4-year term on the council by being sworn in by his partner, Maj. Jerry Hallman, U.S. Army Reserve. The amendment reads: The City supports legislation which will provide marriage equality in Washington. The voters of Tacoma have repeatedly made clear their support for ending discrimination based on sexual orientation. The state has made significant progress on this issue and providing full marriage equality is the next important step.

Before the Council voted on the measure, several Tacoma residents came forward to speak in favor of it. Nobody spoke in opposition.

Calif. video shows gay bashing attack Police are seeking information on three men seen in a video beating two gay men on New Year’s Eve in Santa Barbara, Calif., the SB Independent reports: A police spokesperson said the two victims were walking toward their car parked near Ortega and Chapala Streets

when they were confronted by three men they had never met. One of the suspects made a derogatory comment and the three proceeded to punch the victims. One of the victims suffered a broken jaw and a severe head injury that required staples to close. The other escaped with only minor injuries.

The men were attacked at around 1:45 a.m., and the paper has posted descriptions of the assailants. All were white males with shaved heads.

Said Police Chief Cam Sanchez: “Hate crimes like these will not be tolerated and those responsible will be held accountable.”

TN politician threatens to attack transwomen Transgender Law Center, a civil rights organization advocating for equal protections for transgender individuals, condemns the vicious attack

by Tennessee Representative Richard Floyd (R-Chattanooga) on transgender women and calls on him to apologize for inciting violence against everyday, hardworking Tennesseans.

Rep. Floyd is the sponsor of a new bill that would make it illegal for parents to accompany their different gender children into a restroom, as well as caregivers to assist different gender elderly or disabled people in restrooms. He was recently quoted in the Times Free Press insisting that he would “stomp a mudhole” into any transgender woman trying to use a women’s dressing room.

He said, “...if I was standing at a dressing room and my wife or one of my daughters was in the dressing room and a man tried to go in there -- I don’t care if he thinks he’s a woman and tries on clothes with them in there -- I’d just try to stomp a mudhole in him and then stomp him dry.”

“Representative Floyd’s threats send the message that it is ‘OK’ to attack

FEBRUARY 2012 • number 453 • gay alliance of the genesee valley • the empty closet innocent people based on their gender identity and expression,” said Masen Davis, Executive Director of the Transgender Law Center. “This type of hate speech incites violence and fosters a dangerous and discriminatory environment for transgender people in Tennessee. It is reprehensible for any elected official to encourage violence against people who are our friends and family and who are his constituents.”

Injustice at Every Turn, a report by The National Center for Transgender Equality and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force illustrates the shocking levels of violence and discrimination transgender people face: * Fifty-three percent of respondents reported being verbally harassed or disrespected in a place of public accommodation, including hotels, restaurants, buses, airports and government agencies. Respondents experienced widespread abuse in the public sector, and were often abused at the hands of “helping” professionals and government officials. * One fifth (22 percent) were denied equal treatment by a government agency or official; 29 percent reported police harassment or disrespect; and 12 percent had been denied equal treatment or harassed by judges or court officials. * Sixty-three percent of participants had experienced a serious act of discrimination -- events that would have a major impact on a person’s quality of life and ability to sustain themselves financially or emotionally.

“We are extremely concerned that Rep. Floyd’s hateful and bigoted comments will contribute to violence and discrimination against transgender people in Tennessee and elsewhere,” said Matt Wood, Staff Attorney with the Transgender Law Center. “If nothing else, law enforcement and community members should pay close attention to Rep. Floyd’s comments and respond

immediate if they rise to the level of criminal threats.”

Outrage mounts: Sweden may continue to sterilize trans people If you are a transgender person in Sweden wanting to change your legal gender, you are forced to undergo surgery that will render you permanently infertile and unable to have children in the future.

That’s right: in 2012, Swedish law still mandates forced sterilization in order to do something as simple as changing the gender on your driver’s license.

Despite a massive push to repeal the law, including support from 90 percent of Swedish MPs, Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt has stayed silent on the issue, allowing one small conservative party to block the change.

Right now a reform of the law is being debated in Sweden. Activists ar asking for a massive show of support across Sweden and Europe that finally convinces PM Reinfeldt to speak out and break the deadlock.

Forced sterilization has a long and frightening history in Sweden. Beginning with programs in the 1930s that tried to eliminate certain “undesirable” traits in society by forcing individuals to be sterilized, Sweden has long grappled with the painful history of stripping from citizens what we now consider to be a basic human right. Even Prime Minister Reinfeldt has publicly called sterilization law a “dark chapter in Swedish history”.

Now he has a chance to close that chapter for good. A reform of the law is ready to be presented directly to the Parliament - where 90 percent of MPs are in favor of banning forced sterilization - but without a push from the Prime Minister, the conservative KRISTDEMOKRATERNA party will use its seat in the government to block the change.

Love Georg Elfvelin, a 21 year old store manager in Sweden, explains, “The

Swedish government is forcing thousands of people like me to make an impossible choice. To make the ‘F’ on my identity card an ‘M,’ my country makes me give up the right to have biological children. It’s not fair, and this practice must stop.

“Thousands of people all over Europe have already joined the call and the pressure is building on Prime Minister Reinfeldt to speak out and bring this to an end.

Just yesterday, I took part in a protest here in Stockholm with more than 400 people in attendance. The momentum is building, but we need your help.”

He posted a video on youtube with his appeal: VIDEO LINK: http://www.youtube. com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v= N5BItMiWM60&noredirect=1 We know Prime Minister Reinfeldt is on our side: whether you are straight, gay, lesbian, bi or trans, will you take a moment to raise your voice and ask Prime Minister Reinfeldt to take a stand for human rights?

RFSL, the Swedish LGBT Federation, will deliver your signatures directly to the Prime Minister’s office.

PETITION LINK: www.allout.org/ stop_forced_sterilization

Online campaign shuts Ecuador’s ex-gay torture clinics Ecuador’s Ministry of Health has begun investigating and closing hundreds of underground ex-gay torture clinics after more than 100,000 people joined an online campaign on Change.org.

Fundacion Causana, Taller de Comunicacion Mujer, and Artikulacion Esporadika, a coalition of leading Ecuadorian women’s rights activists, started the campaign on Change.org after working with women who had escaped what they call “torture clinics.” Many of these women cite widespread physical and psychological abuse including verbal threats, shackling, days without food or water, sexual abuse,

15 and physical torture.

“After years of campaigning about the practice of torture rehab clinics that claim to cure homosexuality, the Ecuadorian government has committed to deconstructing the belief that homosexuality is a sickness,” said Fundacion Causana representative Karen Barba. “Using Change.org, we were able to achieve victory in closing down ex-gay torture clinics.”

Before resigning from his position earlier this month, Minister of Health Dr. David Chirriboga announced the Ecuadorian government would investigate and close all torture clinics in the country, launch a national advertising and awareness campaign against homophobia, and develop a crisis hotline for victims.

“The Ministry of Public Health, the governing body of Ecuador’s health sector, is committed to strengthening the measures and institutions that contribute to the eradication of abusive practices such as the supposed treatment of homosexuality,” Dr. Chirriboga said. “The Ecuadorian government rejects such practices as criminal and in direct conflict with the individual freedoms granted to all our citizens.”

Dr. Chiriboga will be replaced by Carina Vance, former executive director of Fundacion Causana and respected a gay rights activist in Ecuador. Under her leadership, three raids have already taken place in the Quito area, and dozens of women have been rescued.

“The growth and ultimate success of Fundacion Causana’s campaign on Change.org is incredible,” said Change. org Human Rights Organizing Manager Emilia Gutierrez. “After 10 years of fighting for the closure of these clinics, it was a Change.org petition with more than 100,000 supporters across the world that tipped the scales. Watching the women of Fundacion Causana achieve this massive victory has been a truly empowering experience.” ( NewsFronts continues on page 16)

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national and international ( Washington from page 9)

the empty closet • the gay alliance of the genesee valley • number 453 • FEBRUARY 2012 Harris, Phillip’s grandfather).

“While these parents and grandparents had no idea, the students at Gordonsville High school bombarded them both with information after Phillip’s death.

More than 100 teens told them the bullying was obvious, and some said they went to teachers about it.

“Now the Parkers want to know why no one from Gordonsville alerted them to the apparent bullying happening in the hallways.”

Barney Frank to wed in Massachusetts

Another bullied child commits suicide From WSMV.com: A Gordonsville, Tenn. boy’s parents say bullying caused their son to take his own life. Phillip Parker, 14, died in late January. His parents said he was constantly bullied for being gay. …“He was fun, he was energetic, he was happy,” said Gena Parker, Phillip’s mother. To his many friends, Phillip was known as the boy who told everyone they’re beautiful.

“He kept telling me he had a rock on his chest,” said Ruby Harris, Phillip’s grandmother. “He just wanted to take the rock off where he could breathe.”

Phillip’s family said they reported their concerns over their son’s bullying to Gordonsville High School on multiple occasions, but the bullying by a group of students just got worse.

-www.towleroad.com According to Box Turtle Bulletin, NewsChannel5 reported: “After he did what he did, we found out a lot that we didn’t know and there is a lot of bullying that goes on at the school,” said (Paul

Rep. Barney Frank (MA –D), the senior out elected official on the Hill, is going to marry his long-time partner, Jim Ready, 42.

Harry Gural, spokesman in Frank’s press office, said that Ready is a photographer who also owns a small business doing custom awnings, carpentry, painting, welding and other general handyman services.

The 71-year-old Frank came out of the closet in 1987. He has said he will not run for re-election.

Chuck Wolfe of The Victory Fund stated, “We are thrilled for Barney and Jim, and offer them both our congratulations and best wishes. As one of the world’s most visible out elected officials, Barney Frank has long used his position and influence to draw attention to the freedoms LGBT Americans deserve but still do not enjoy.

It’s fitting that as his time in Congress comes to a close, he will finally take advantage of the freedom to marry in his home state of Massachusetts.” ■

FEBRUARY 2012 • number 453 • gay alliance of the genesee valley • the empty closet

♥ The Red Ball Glitter and Glam

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Saturday, February eleven seven to eleven Cathedral Hall

Auditorium Theatre Center, 875 East Main Street Free parking is available in the lot on College Street (between Goodman and Prince) Tickets are $10 in advance; $15 at the door available online at www.GayAlliance.org and also at Equal=Grounds and OutLandish Singles, couples, families, friends and allies of all ages are welcome Wear red to win prizes • enjoy music, beer and wine cash bar • a gift basket raffle and more

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TRANS– TRANS–

the empty closet • the gay alliance of the genesee valley • number 453 • FEBRUARY 2012

The Gay Alliance has worked to represent people of all sexu for nearly 40 years. These pages are an introduc and are available to download a

Bobby

My gender identity is male. I was born into a female body that did not fit for me, so being a transman doesn’t mean anything other then becoming the man I should have always been. I feel that someone’s gender isn’t determined by what is between their legs but what is between their ears. Having gone through this transition has finally led me to the light that was hidden in the darkness.

If I could be any superhero I would be “The Man of Steel.” As Clark Kent he was humble and unique. He journeyed through conflicts with isolation and intimacy his whole life until finally becoming the man he was meant to be; therefore I am Superman.

Patti

I identify as female, and I always have, but being born transgendered it wasn’t always obvious to the world around me.

That journey and subsequent gender transition have given me a keen insight, respect and awareness of the roles gender plays in our society, making me very aware of the importance to live an authentic life, true to who you are.

If I could be any superhero I would be Wonder Woman... for the obvious reasons... her super powers.

Jane Marie

I identify as a crossdresser. I don’t fully dress or present myself as a female 24/7. There are areas of my life that require that I maintain a male persona and I’m ok with that.

If I could be any superhero I would be Lt. Marissa Rahm, a male-to-female police officer. No super powers, but she has a badge and a gun, and excellent fighting skills.

Mariah

I identify myself as a person with a serious mission.

If I could be any superhero, that special person would be Wonder Woman, because it’s amazing to deliver a message of hope while being beautiful. Here you have a lady who works a 9 to 5 and then transforms into a powerful role model. It’s like me working in the HIV/AIDS field. I would use my powers to make changes to better suit our world and to reduce the statistics of this deadly disease.

Maur

I am a genderqueer individual.

To me that means that I am not covered by the context of the words “man” or “woman”. When I’m faced with those boxes “male” and “female” on forms, I want a few more: “Yes”, “No”, “Not Applicable”, and perhaps “Mu”. Being open as a genderqueer also means I spend a lot of time fighting for my preferred pronouns.

If I could be any superhero, I’d be Batman. He has unlimited resources to develop new gadgets and to fund his favorite causes.

Underneath it all, he’s a human like everyone else.

Being Respectful

Transgender Groups

By Jeanne Gainsburg

By Jessica

• If you are not sure how someone identifies or what pronoun they prefer, we recommend that you ask in a respectful way and in a private place.

• Don’t assume that sexual reassignment/realignment surgery (SRS) is a goal for all transgender people. Some people cannot afford it. Some people don’t want it.

• Remember that gender identity does not define sexual orientation. Who someone is attracted to is separate from their gender identity and gender expression.

• If someone has trusted you enough to share that they are transgender, do not “out” them to others. For example, don’t introduce them as your transgender friend.

• Always use someone’s preferred name and pronoun even when you are talking about the past. Use phrases like, “before you transitioned,” rather than “back when you were David.”

• Talking openly or asking questions about someone’s genitalia is impolite whether the person is cisgender or transgender.

• Being transgender is only a part of who someone is, like being gay, Jewish, or a vegetarian. Move beyond the fact that they are transgender and get to know who they really are.

Transgender Vocabulary

Ally: A person who does not identify with a group, but still advocates for that group’s rights.

Cisgender: The state of not being transgender. Someone who is comfortable with the gender they were assigned at birth.

Crossdresser: A person who dresses in clothing deemed inappropriate by society for their gender. The purpose is usually emotional comfort or erotic fulfillment.

Gender Expression: The part of a person’s sexual identity that is about expressing masculinity or femininity as influenced by society, culture and individual expectations.

Sometimes referred to as gender role.

Gender Identity: The part of a person’s sexual identity that is about their sense of self as male or female, neither or both.

Genderqueer: A person who expresses their gender in ways that do not conform to societal expectations.

Intersex: A person whose biological anatomy and/or genes vary from the expected male or female anatomy and/ or genetics.

Transgender: In its broadest meaning, this term encompasses anyone whose self-identity, behavior or anatomy falls outside of societal gender norms and expectations.

Transphobia: Negative feelings, attitudes, actions, or behaviors against transgender people or people perceived to be transgender. It may also be a fear of one’s own gender non-conformity.

Transsexual: A person whose gender identity is not congruent with their biological sex. Transsexuals may or may not pursue hormonal or surgical means to bring congruency to themselves.

Movies

Prodigal Sons (Documentary) directed by Kimberly Reed Cruel and Unusual (Documentary) directed by Janet Baus et al Ma Vie en Rose (French Drama) directed by Alain Berliner Boys Don’t Cry (Drama) directed by Kimberly Pierce

Guys’ Night Out

Guys’ Night Out is a local transguy Equal=Grounds (750 South Ave). Tran questioning individuals) are welcome Adrian says: “We are a group of tra or advice over a cup of coffee in a env For more information about this gr

Genesee Valley Gender Varian

Genesee Valley Gender Variants is people of all gender identities and pre Equal=Grounds (750 South Ave).

Maur says: “Less formally, I think hope is to foster a sense of communit past we’ve played games and had conv the real strength of GV2 is it’s face-to For more information about this gr

Rochester Trans Group

Rochester Trans Group is an all inc variant individuals and allies ages 18+ 3-5pm in the Gay Alliance Youth Cent Alliance.

Jeanne says: “RTG provides an opp and also grow and learn together. We offer an educational component that m members.”

For more information about this gr Alliance at 585-244-8640.

Youth Trans Group

This is a support group for transge Gay Alliance Youth Program Director 6pm-7pm in the Gay Alliance Youth C Jess says: “Youth Trans Group pro outside of the gender binary. Particip support and friendship, and engage in advance and may include guest speak For more information about this gr

Books

Transgender History by Susan Stryker Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman She’s Not There: A Life in Two Genders Sexing the Body: Gender politics and th From the Inside Out: Radical Gender T Intersex (For Lack of a Better Word) by The Testosterone Files: My Hormonal an Transparent: Love, Family, and Living Just Add Hormones: An Insider’s Guide Gender Outlaws: On Men, Women and Transgender Warriors By Leslie Feinbe

Websites

Gender Education and Advocacy http:/ FTM Information Network http://www PFLAG Transgender Network http://co TransActive http://www.transactiveon The Transitional Male http://www.the National Center for Transgender Equal New York Association for Gender Right Transgender Aging Network http://forg Transgender Law Center http://transg Transgender Legal Defense and Educat The Self Made Men http://theselfmade TransGenderCare http://transgenderc

–basics –basics

FEBRUARY 2012 • number 453 • gay alliance of the genesee valley • the empty closet

19

ual orientations, gender identities and gender expressions ction to transgender information and resources, as a PDF at www.GayAlliance.org.

s in Rochester

ys group that meets at 1pm on the third Saturday of the month at nsmen and those identifying with transmasculine experience (including e. ans men who try and meet up to say “hi” to check in on life... offer an ear vironment that is welcoming.” roup please email tguysnightout@gmail.com

nts

s a social group dedicated to providing a safe, supportive community for esentations and our allies. We meet every Thursday from 7-9pm at

of the group as having an emphasis on getting to know each other. My y, with the group evolving as we go to fit what folks want it to be. In the versations. I like the fact that this group has an online presence too, but o-face social time.” roup please email GVGenderVariants@yahoogroups.com

clusive transgender social/educational group which welcomes all gender +. Rochester Trans Group meets on the last Saturday of the month from ter (875 E. Main St. First floor) and runs in affiliation with the Gay

portunity for transgender individuals of all identities and allies to socialize e spend some time socializing and enjoying refreshments and then we may be a guest speaker or a film. Topics are chosen in advance by group

Transgender legal issues: dealing with attacks

By Jessica Transgender individuals have been lacking social and legal advocacy since the beginning of history and as a result have faced innumerable injustices. This community faces complicated forms of prejudice that are embedded in every institution in the U.S. as well as compounded by race and class.

These facts are well known to most trans people, who experience them in a very real way. There tends to be a divide between the reality of the situation and possible solutions to keep our siblings safe. In my own experience as a trans woman, I’ve faced frightening situations that statistics, lectures, and pamphlets didn’t prepare me for. As I’ve explored my trans identity I’ve had to learn as I go and in these types of situations the learning curve is a lot faster.

Early on in my transition, I experienced a handful of quickly escalating confrontations with people who perceived me as different or threatening because of my gender presentation. In one situation, I was cornered by a man who identified himself as a member of the U.S. military, while I was watching a band perform. He began to berate me by calling me a faggot and referring to me with male pronouns. After several minutes of verbal abuse, I asked him politely to use female pronouns if he was going to continue speaking to me or he should leave me alone. He was extremely angry upon hearing this request and began putting his hands on me, and slamming me into a wall.

I had confidence in my ability to fight, but I considered my options carefully before acting.

1. I could attack him and risk dealing with police or be sent to a male prison. ‘Nuff said.

2. Let him continue hitting me until he wears himself out.

3. Signal to a friend/staff member/or anyone around to get security or contact the authorities.

Thankfully I decided on the third option, which resulted in him literally being thrown from the bar. Sadly, this isn’t always how it works out. “Crimes” committed out of self defense have resulted in many trans people facing long prison sentences.

Unfortunately, we have to resist the urge to respond violently in this type of situation, as much as these clowns have it coming. Unless you’re certain your life is in danger and you don’t have an out, leave the boxing to Tyson.

roup please contact Jeanne at jeanneg@gayalliance.org or call the Gay

ender and gender non-conforming youth (ages 13-23) run by Jess Cohen, r. Meetings are the generally the first Thursday of the month from Center (first floor of the Auditorium Center). ovides teens and young adults a safe space to explore and affirm identities pants are given the opportunity to share their experience, find peer n group discussion. Topics and activities are often chosen by the group in kers, movies and combined educational/social programming.” roup please email jessc@gayalliance.org or call 585-244-8640 ext. 13.

on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity by Julia Serano s by Jennifer Finney Boylan he Construction of Sexuality by Anne Fausto Sterling Transformation, FTM and Beyond by Morty Diamond y Thea Hillman nd Social Transformation from Female to Male by Max Wolf Valerio the T with Transgender Teenagers by Cris Beam Sterling e to the Transexual Expereince by Matt Kailey d the Rest of Us by Kate Bornstein erg

//www.gender.org/ w.ftminfo.net/ ommunity.pflag.org/page.aspx?pid=380 nline.org etransitionalmale.com/ lity http://transequality.org/ ts Advocacy http://www.nyagra.com/ ge-forward.org/aging/ genderlawcenter.org tion Fund http://transgenderlegal.org/ emen.webs.com/ care.com/

Food For Thought

6 Steps to Being an Ally to the Transgender Community

By Jessica

By Katy Elder

Trans-misogyny: The idea that trans women have discarded their better masculine gender and donned a feminine one that is less valuable.

It accounts for why trans women tend to be more regularly ridiculed than trans men, and why trans women face forms of sexualization and misogyny that are rarely applied to cisgender women.

1. Come Out: Be vocal about your support of the transgender community. Make yourself a visible transgender ally, by putting a sticker on your car, laptop, or office door or wearing a pin.

2. Speak Up: When you hear derogatory comments about transgender people let people know that’s not OK. Ask your doctor to include more than an M or F box on medical forms.

Urge your employer to include gender identity and gender expression in their non-discrimination policy if it isn’t already.

3. Get Out: Join a gay/straight alliance. Attend International Transgender Day of Remembrance events in November. Attend a Rochester Trans Group (RTG) meeting which is open to gender variant individuals and allies over 18. RTG meets the last Saturday of every month, 3-5 p.m. in the Gay Alliance Youth Center (875 E. Main St. First floor).

4. Stand Up: Get involved in the push to pass the Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act (GENDA) in New York.

Currently, transgender and gender non-conformists are not protected from discrimination by law. Write your state representatives and let them know that you support equality for all, and are willing to put your vote behind this choice. Write to the U.S. Census Bureau to request that they include sexual orientation and gender identity in the next census.

5. Buddy Up: There are lots of places that hold unique challenges for transgender people, such as public bathrooms, doctors’ offices, the DMV, etc. Offer to go along with a friend.

6. Read Up: Check out some of the great resources listed in our “Want To Know More” box, and on the EC’s Resources page, or visit the GAGV Library and Archive, open 6-8 p.m.

Mondays and Wednesdays, and 3-5 p.m. Sundays. A list of the library’s holdings are available at http://www.librarything. com/catalog/GAGVLibrary.

Oppositional sexism:

Sexism that is rooted in the presumption that female and male are “opposite sexes”, rather than different sexes.

Oppositional sexism is specifically used to divide people up into two groups, each possessing a unique and non-overlapping set of attributes, aptitudes, abilities, and desires. It targets those who blur the lines of these two groups.

Did you know: 13 states currently have explicit transgender non-discrimination laws in place?

In a 2011 study that surveyed 6,450 transgender people: • 19% reported having been homeless because of their gender identity • 53% reported having been harassed in public accommodations or government agencies • 19% reported having been refused medical care because of their gender identity

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the empty closet • the gay alliance of the genesee valley • number 453 • FEBRUARY 2012

Jason Robert Ballard

A talk with transman Jason Robert Ballard

By Susan Jordan Empty Closet: Can you share some personal information?

Jason Ballard: My name is Jason Robert Ballard (named after the Red Power Ranger believe it or not) and I am a 24-year-old transman. While I’m from Rochester now, I like to say that my hometown is New York State since I’ve lived all over it.

I have a wonderful girlfriend that I met while attending Nazareth College.

We’ve been together a short time, but she’s become a great ally and advocate for the Trans* community.

EC: When did you realize that your gender is male and what was your coming out process like? Have you experienced discrimination or hostility as a transman?

JB: When I was 13 years old I finally “created” myself in an online chat room.

Four years later (when my mother found out) was the breaking point of the depression I had been going through. Depression caused by living life as a female and coming into womanhood. I was ashamed for quite some time after that… The negative stigma surrounding being a “transsexual” was more than I could really bear.

Accepting my true identity has really saved my life. When asked if I experienced discrimination or hostility, I’m sure that most people are looking for external sources. However, one out of four trans people ends up taking their own life, leaving the life expectancy at about 23. My biggest enemy was always myself. Thankfully I’ve passed that and now it’s important to me to get others there.

I’d like to say that I had a lot of support once my family and I were on the same page, which is not to say I struggled with any friction regarding them, but there was zero information or community available to me. It was continuously by dumb luck or fantastic social networking that I eventually found more information about starting hormones, finding the right doctor and then receiving surgery.

EC: What does being a man mean to you?

JB: Being male, or being perceived

male, to me has been solidifying. I once described fitting female gender roles as walking on a tight rope. The clothes, the hair, the female culture -- it was all very unstable. Once I started dressing comfortably, socially transitioning, physically transitioning, it felt like both of my feet were finally on solid ground. Socially I became a butterfly.

I must admit that being Trans* in a location that has an amazing LGBT community has made my confidence seem somewhat elitist at times, but with my life experiences, I can’t help but feel more than just male.

I regard myself as a feminist. I know that term also tends to have some negative stigma surrounding it, but I have been called such on occasion. I think that understanding what it’s like to be perceived as female, knowing the gender roles and having a strong sense of morals makes me a supporter of women’s rights.

I also, though now male, connect with females on a more personal level than any guys I’ve met. It’s much like any cause, once there are faces to it, it’s easier to fight for… Well, half the population is women, so we shouldn’t be in short supply.

EC: We reviewed the Self Made Men calendar last year. Can you talk a little about creating it? Do you have other products and a website?

JB: Without that strong community, role models, or any decent websites, I took it upon myself to make sure that others had the necessary resources in their time of need. The Self Made Men has become far more than just a calendar project in the recent months.

Though 2012 calendars are still available for sale, we have produced Trans* cards for hormones and surgeries, pins, stickers, Tshirts and more. The funds from all of these pride products have helped us create TheSelfMadeMen.com.

In just the last three months, we have created a trans pen pal program used by over 700 people, and developed an online resource hub with about 80 Trans* sites from binders to zines, pharmacies to surgeons. The most exciting thing to happen to us recently however, is that an LGBT bookstore in Melbourne, Australia is going to start selling our products! ■

FEBRUARY 2012 • number 453 • gay alliance of the genesee valley • the empty closet

Shoulders to Stand On Tony Mascioli – Thank you for your Shoulders! We met your $10,000 challenge!

By Evelyn Bailey In October, 2011, I asked Anthony Mascioli, a friend, native Rochestarian, and gay business man, for a rather large donation to the Shoulders To Stand On 90 minute documentary on the LGBT History of Rochester.

I explained that the documentary has been in the making for over 10 years, and that our history needed to be documented and preserved.

He responded by saying he is much more

comfortable Matching Donations than just giving a donation outright. Thus began the planning for raising $10,000 between December 2, 2011 and January 15, 2012.

You need to understand that Tony is a very sharp business man. His challenge energized the Shoulders To Stand On Committee who then began in a very focused way to energize the community to raise the money.

If we had simply been given the money, we would not have reached out to the community strategically, and we would not have developed a longer range plan for actively raising money. I think Tony knew the impetus of meeting his challenge would create other avenues of support and fundraising, and bring in more money.

As of Sunday, January 8 we had reached our goal of $10,000 plus. The total budget for the documentary is $120,000. We are on our way toward reaching that goal.

Our fundraising efforts have brought in approximately $16,000. With Tony’s match of $10,000, our total to date will be around $26,000. Tony’s generosity will make the video taping of individual interviews for the documentary possible.

We need to bring in another $15,000 to finish the filming. Next will be the editing and finally the finished product. An educational kit will be developed for the documentary to be used in schools k - 12, corporate diversity programs, and on college campuses.

This educational kit will become the founda-

21 tion for a curriculum on local lgbt history.

Finally, Shoulders To Stand On will work to legislate inclusion of lgbt history in the local history curriculum for New York State. Tony’s contribution brings us closer to filming the 90 minute documentary on the LGBT History of Rochester, which will be told by the stories of the many men and women who have contributed to our fight for equality and justice. Education through the sharing of personal stories has been shown to have the largest impact on lowering or removing barriers to acceptance.

The stories of these courageous men and women need to be told to bring to light the many contributions the LGBT community has made, and their impact on the social, economic and political life of Rochester.

Shoulders To Stand On is proud to recognize Tony Mascioli’s support of this community project. With more shoulders like Tony’s, we will reach our goal of completing the documentary for the 20th anniversary of ImageOut, October 2012. ■

Shoulders To Stand On Timeline: Nov. 2002:

Initial meeting to produce promotional video for the

Gay Alliance.

Jan.–Dec. 2003: Promotional video taped, script written.

March, 2004: Final draft of promotional video completed.

April 2007: Shoulders To Stand On committee formed.

Sep. 2010: 40 years of The Empty Closet microfilmed and digitized.

2009–2010: NYS DHP Archives Grant – Identify and locate records of 260+ LGBT organizations, agencies, groups and individuals.

2010–2011: NYS DHP Archives Grant – Survey minimum of five record collections.

Jan. 2011: Chronology of 40 years of The Empty Closet completed.

Oct. 2011: Began fundraising for Shoulders To Stand On, a 90-minute documentary.

Dec. 2011: NYS DHP Archives Grant Awarded for 2011-2012 to place minimum of three record collections in permanent repositories.

Jan. 15 2012: Reached fundraising goal of $10,000 to be matched by Tony Mascioli.

22

the empty closet • the gay alliance of the genesee valley • number 453 • FEBRUARY 2012

Columnists The opinions of columnists, editorial writers and other contributing writers are their own and do not necessarily reflect the collective attitude of the Gay Alliance of the Genesee Valley or The Empty Closet.

Growing Up What we do best

By Eric Bellmann Write witty plays? Yes. Design smart clothes?

Check. I could go on. Gays really enliven the arts, make the cultural scene what it is, rich and meaningful.

The list of talents is long and distinguished. Sondheim, Bernstein, Jerome Robbins, Kors, Marc Jacobs, Paul Rudnick, David Sedaris. Jump in and add your icons. I’m an unapologetic Sondheim groupie. I get a kick out of walking past the Marc Jacobs store fronts on Bleeker Street. So creative, such fun!

The theater would be a barren wasteland if it weren’t for the energy and taste of legions of writers, actors, designers, producers.

And now, in this modern age that no one really expected to witness, so many out of the closet. Proud and very present. (Yeah, a few notable exceptions, Mr. Cooper, Miss Foster, but we know, we know.) I especially enjoy seeing Cheyenne Jackson in a recurring role on “30 Rock”. I’ve seen him twice on the stage; he’s a great performer. Does average America know he married his partner this summer on Fire Island? Probably not. But openness matters to me.

However that is not what is on my mind. Hang on dear hearts. What we do best is belittle, demean and diminish one another. We sneer at a man’s haircut or that he doesn’t comb it in the current hot guy style. We mock other gay men who are overweight, old or not in shape. It’s all self-loathing tucked barely under the surface, projected on to the nearest target, the man standing next to us. It’s a long standing, sad and lamentable behavior that every minority group seems to need someone to ostracize, as if that will make them feel better about themselves. It doesn’t work. It leaves a sour taste, contributes to a sense of isolation, cements insecurities behind smartass put downs. Or I hope it does.

Did feminists deal with other women this way? Actually they did. There was a period when the newly emerging movement was really uncomfortable with Lesbians. That didn’t last terribly long.

Sisterhood proved to be powerful. Men, the group I know, seems to be different.

Oh sure we donate money, go on fundraising hikes, but just go to a well meaning gathering, a party and you can easily see the separation, the discrimination. It isn’t even subtle. We love cliques.

A couple of years ago I went to an Image Out screening. In front of me I saw someone I thought was a friend.

But he was with a cluster of attractive, younger men and it was as if I wasn’t even there. I was invisible. I knew what was happening in a flash because I was capable of the same attitude.

In my school years, when I was really unhappy with myself, I only wanted to be friends with the hottest guys, the most stylish women. Reflected glamour. Their acceptance, I imagine, made me better than what I truly believed of myself. Life and time helped me first realize what I was doing and then overcome it.

I have one lifelong friend, 40 plus years and counting, and he never fails to make a snarky crack about my decorating, my tastes in general. Odd thing is

that he loves me.

He hasn’t a clue how he mocks me.

So, I let it go. Why make a fuss? Why rock the boat?

I’m glad we’ve lasted. He used to refer to his partner in passing by saying, “Look what I got,” as if the guy was a pure breed dog. My boyfriend is hot, better than yours. Anything and everything to raise one’s level on some imaginary list of assets. Yuk. That cutting quip, the brittle humor that made other people laugh, which ingratiated us with the in crowd, seemingly won acceptance, friends, was not in the long run the best strategy. It only served to establish a detached state; a lack of intimacy, the most essential aspect of friendship.

Once years ago I had a pair of summer shoes that were, well, funny. Woven strips of multi-colored leather. Couldn’t resist them when I saw them at Sims. I wore them to a work conference. Exiting from a workshop, a colleague, a gay man, looked at me and said, “No self-respecting gay man would wear shoes like that!”

So much for being subtle. This guy wore gay drag worthy of satire. Baseball hat, plaid shirt, 401 Levis. Oops, I’m mocking him. See what I mean? It’s ingrained, almost second nature.

Consequently, I have my guard up. I never really feel at ease around gay men.

Or I didn’t, not for a long, long time.

What changed is that I got to know older gay men, survivors seasoned by life, men more appreciative of the small kindnesses that make the days more bearable. Maybe they spend less on clothes now, are more comfortable in whatever.

They’re learned to live with themselves, are more accepting, more tolerant, more appreciative of the little things that make life pleasant. Or maybe they have learned the wisdom of just shutting up.

Older gay men seem more often to espouse behaviors I aspire to: validation, acceptance, intimacy.

Email: elbcad@rit.edu

Cleaning My Closet friending

By Meredith Elizabeth Reiniger I am once again annoyed that the red of Gift-mas has morphed into the red of Saint Money-tines. In protest, I will not wear red this February.

Steadfastly I will refuse to swoon when sappy songs gush forth. Enough already!

I am sick and tired of the 14th, the day calculated to swamp your sweetheart with the myth, the dream, the hope of Eternal True Love.

Furthermore I am super-sizedannoyed that December 27th was the start of gag-me-with-a-spoon Valentine hype. Weeks of commercialized romantic love. For sale: absolutely anything that can be produced in red, white, pink, and lace. Satin hearts stuffed with candy.

Teddy bears stuffed with fuzz. Thongs stuffed with expectations.

For heaven’s sakes, I remember my old days when Hershey kisses only came in silver foil. And underpants came in cotton, from a store, not a boyfriend.

And the older my days and I become, the more I understand that fairytale boyfriends and romanticized girlfriends were a deception. Lies aided and abetted by movies, novels and stores. Now another

level of impossible dream has surfaced.

The Best Friend Forever fabrication. No single person can fill the shoes of Bestness. And “forever” actually has an expiration date.

Friends… a very tricky concept. I know a guy who calls any human being he encounters “friend” right after they exchange first names. I am horrified that Facebook pollutes the definition of “friends” by encouraging quantity. I am surprised by the power of social media to create a bizarre competition to acquire the most “friends.”

Friends? Invisible readers who push a button that reports “Like.”

For me, the past makes a good story, not a destination. Contacting sixty-eight years worth of “friends” is not one of my needs. Personally I have very little interest in my school friends. I have no desire to ask, “So, what have you been doing the last five decades?” And I certainly do not want to read the answer.

I really have more fun re-viewing snippets from my life. Fragments that are mirrors of my formative stages. I remember my childhood friend, Donna, two years younger. We amused ourselves with my dollhouse and my rules.

I, always and still bossy, claimed the mother doll, a plastic woman with a hideous red dress and moveable but stiff arms and legs. I allowed Donna to play with the not-to-scale rubber baby. Due to the doll’s large size and its permanent sitting position, I diagnosed polio. Little Donna accepted her fate. Little Donna, a playmate, my friend for a season.

In high school I had an assortment of friends for a season. Four years with peers who guided me as I shaped my personality. Four years studying the human body, learning about heterosexual necking and petting.

My sorority friends taught me about inequality. My fellow cheerleaders taught me how to show off. Friends in the Red Cross Club taught me to how to give my time and heart. My school newspa-

per staff taught me about the power and consequences of the written word.

But now, these many years later, I am willing to remain unconnected to those high school friends, even those who signed my yearbook. Even those who attached two extra sheets of paper and swore to be friends forever. Two roads diverged in a frosty, yellow wood, a long, long time ago. But some of my really, really good school friends never even made it to the woods.

In the beginning of my life, I had just plain, adjective-free friends. But such a time, I wanted to differentiate among degrees of friendship. I liked my good friends to be face to face quite regularly.

Still do. I really need to have the added information provided by eye contact, body language, and tone of voice. I call those people my fleshfriends.

As time passes, some goodfriends and familyfriends have moved beyond reach.

Yes, emails provide the high-speed delivery of chatty news, written 24/7 as the mood strikes me. But a computer screen is a cold void. I can’t really feel hugs and kisses that come as ( ) or xx. I feel no surge of endorphins when I see LOL. Yet there is some magical connection that keeps those distant friends close in spirit.

They are my heartfriends.

It’s the walk-ins that defy labeling. I can easily define a colleague… we work together as employees, on committees, while volunteering. Our conversations are primarily activity centered. We have never been a guest in each other’s house.

Then there are the more long-term walk-ins, occasionally sighted. They are the folks met along the way, not chosen.

I called them “acquaintances.” Apparently that term is old-fashioned and has been replaced by the ubiquitous “friend” label. Still I need a way to note the level of the relationship. Maybe “friendlies” would work. A friendly is a person to whom one is cordial, perhaps exchanging the weather report and a vaguely answered “How Are You?” Two ships

FEBRUARY 2012 • number 453 • gay alliance of the genesee valley • the empty closet passing in the night. Or say, at a festive gathering.

Now it is 2012. My stars! I have survived another year. I am deeper into seniorness. These days my definition of friend implies a back-up system, the person who will show up in a crisis. The person who will listen to my woes and worries. The people who will be there when I fall to my knees.

These supportfriends would drive me to doctors’ appointments, meet me at the hospital, sit with me when I am frightened, hold my hand, make chicken soup.

My supportfriends will do for me the things I cannot do for myself. Supportfriends are friends for a reason. The reason is love.

MeredithElizabethReiniger@frontiernet.net

Faith Matters Transgender, victimized and black

By Rev. Irene Monroe It’s not easy for any person of African descent to be LGBTQ in our black communities, but our transgender brothers and sisters might feel the most discrimination.

The National Black Justice Coalition (NBJC), in collaboration with the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and the National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE), released a groundbreaking study in September 2011 called “Injustice at Every Turn: A Look at Black Respondents in the National Transgender Discrimination Survey,” exposing both the structural and individual racism transgender people of color confront. The study is a supplement to the national study “Injustice at Every Turn:

A Report of the National Transgender Discrimination Survey.”

Because misinformation about transgender people in our country is rampant and egregiously offensive, its impact is deleterious. Transphobia in black communities has left these members of our community especially vulnerable. The statistics are stark: # Black transgender people had an extremely high unemployment rate at 26 percent, two times the rate of the overall transgender sample and four times the rate of the general population. # A startling 41 percent of Black respondents said they had experienced homelessness at some point in their lives, more than five times the rate of the general U.S. population. # Black transgender people lived in extreme poverty with 34 percent reporting a household income of less than $10,000 per year. This is more than twice the rate for transgender people of all races (15 percent), four times the general Black population rate (9 percent), and eight times the general U.S. population rate (4 percent). # Black transgender people were affected by HIV in devastating numbers. More than one-fifth of respondents were living with HIV (20.23 percent), compared to a rate of 2.64 percent for transgender respondents of all races, 2.4 percent for the general Black population, and 0.60 percent of the general U.S. population. # Half of Black respondents who attended school expressing a transgender identity or gender non-conformity reported facing harassment.

Nearly half (49 percent) of Black respondents reported having attempted suicide.

On a positive note, many Black transgender people who were out to their families reported that their families were as strong as before they came out. Black respondents reported this experience at a higher rate than the overall sample of

transgender respondents.

Adding insult to injury is the lack of recognition our trans brothers and sisters receive for their contributions to our community. If any recognition is doled out, it is usually posthumously.

For example, the annual Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDOR) is an international event memorializing transgender people murdered because of their gender identities or gender expressions. The purpose of TDOR is to raise public awareness of hate crimes against transgender people and to honor their lives that might otherwise be forgotten. This event is held every November and honors Rita Hester, a 34-year-old African American trans individual who was murdered in her home just outside of Boston on Nov. 28, 1998. The crime kicked off the “Remembering Our Dead” web project.

Another example: in June 2006 the Ali Forney Center (AFC), in NYC, the nation’s largest LGBTQ youth homeless services center, aggressively launched an advertising campaign asking the simple question: “Would you stop loving your child if you found out they were gay or lesbian?”

Carl Siciliano, Executive Director of the Ali Forney Center, stated, “Our goal was to address the rising rate of LGBT youth homelessness, particularly in communities of color.”

Ali Forney, for whom the center is named, was an African American transgender individual known as Luscious and was also a throwaway. And like many throwaways, Forney earned his living as a prostitute. Once stabilized with a roof over his head, Forney spent his remaining years dedicating his time to helping his peers. On a cold wintry December night in 1997, at 4 a.m., Forney was murdered by a still-unidentified assailant.

Black transphobia, in this present-day and in its present form, many opine, has a lot to do with the social alienation from the dominant white LGBTQ community

23 and the cultural and religious isolation from the African American community.

Trans brothers and sisters have not always been the “other.” Black drag balls and then “drag houses” or “drag families,” as seen in Jennie Livingston’s 1990 documentary film Paris Is Burning, were comprised of primarily African American and transgender Latinos who lived in their communities. Their performance at drag balls illustrates how race, class, and varying ranges of gender identities and expressions deconstruct notions of masculinity, and redefine what it means to be a diva.

During the 1920s in Harlem, the renowned Savoy Ballroom and the Rockland Palace hosted drag ball extravaganzas with prizes awarded for the best costumes. Harlem Renaissance writer Langston Hughes depicted the balls as “spectacles of color.” George Chauncey, author of Gay New York, wrote that during this period “perhaps nowhere were more men willing to venture out in public in drag than in Harlem.”

And with constant harassment by white policemen patrolling the neighborhood, making the trans community their conspicuous target, along with public denouncements of them by black ministers -- like the famous Adam Clayton Powell, Sr. of Abyssinian Baptist Church -- Harlem’s trans community was, nonetheless, unrelenting with the drag balls, because they were wildly popular and growing among its working class. And these drag balls were covered in the black press: “Of course, a costume ball can be a very tame thing, but when all the exquisitely gowned women on the floor are men and a number of the smartest men are women, ah then, we have something over which to thrill and grow roundeyed,” reported the gossipy black weekly tabloid The Inter-State Tattler.

The study “Injustice at Every Turn: A Look at Black Respondents in the National Transgender Discrimination Survey” gives us just a small window into the everyday lived reality of my transgender brothers and sisters.

A Few Bricks Short Geezerhood

By David Hull Well, it’s happening to me. I knew that it would eventually, but I always thought I’d be much older when it started – certainly older than I am now.

Sometimes I can pretend that it’s not happening, but there are often blatant warning signs when I have to hesitantly admit that I am slowly becoming a geezer.

Oh, I’m not totally a geezer yet – I don’t get in a long cashier line at the grocery store and when my bill comes to $27.94, carefully open my wallet and count out the exact amount of change.

But I do know exact change would be two tens, a five, two ones, three quarters, a dime, a nickel and four pennies. Just knowing what the exact change would be is definitely a warning sign of my approaching geezerhood.

One weekend my nephew was over helping with some yard work and he wore his earphones the whole time. The music blaring from his MP3 player (I think that’s what it was anyway) was so loud I could hear it when I was just standing next to him.

“Turn that noise down!” I said.

“You’ll be deaf by the time you’re 30!

You don’t need that music so darn loud!”

My nephew pulled his earphones off and replied: “What?” I rolled my eyes and walked away shaking my head.

When I stopped and thought about it, I remember my father telling me to turn my music down when I was a teenager. I explained to him that it was Cher (Columnists continue on page 24)

24

Columnists (Columnists continued from page 23) and I had to play it loud – because it was Cher. He walked away shaking his head too. Another warning sign of geezerhood for me.

Recently my husband, Bernie wanted to go out to a new BBQ restaurant that had just opened in the city. So on a Tuesday evening we drove out to the place.

A smiling hostess greeted us at the door. “A table for two will be about a 50 to 60 minute wait,” she told us, cheerfully.

“What,” I replied. “Are you serious?

It’s 6 o’clock on a Tuesday night and you want me to wait an hour for a table? Saturday morning I stopped at McDonald’s for breakfast and I had hotcakes and coffee and got a window seat in like six minutes! If I wait an hour for a table I won’t be eating dinner until 7:30 at night!”

When we were back in the car, Bernie was quick to point out that I had just behaved like a geezer. And while we were enjoying our dinner of Big Macs and fries on the drive home, I realized that I had reacted exactly the way my grandfather used to whenever he had to wait at a restaurant. Warning! Warning! Geezerhood approaching! This is not a drill!

Another disturbing situation is when I go to the Redbox DVD machine at my local Wal-Mart. Carefully I study the unfamiliar movie titles starring people I’ve never heard of. Not only do I not know what any of the movies are about – I really don’t have any interest in even seeing them.

“What movie did you get for this weekend?” Bernie asked when I returned home.

“I didn’t get anything,” I told him.

“All the movies looked either too violent, too scary or too silly. Why doesn’t Hollywood make any good movies anymore?”

the empty closet • the gay alliance of the genesee valley • number 453 • FEBRUARY 2012 “Maybe Hollywood is still making good movies,” Bernie said. “But they’re for a younger generation and you’re too old to appreciate them.”

I folded my arms across my chest and glared at him. “One more comment like that and we’ll be watching Funny Girl again this weekend.”

Yeah, I know, Funny Girl is a movie for geezers!

So my future seems clear – I’ll spend my golden years complaining about music that’s too darn loud, eating dinner at 4:30 p.m. at the village diner where there’s never a wait for a table, making exact change to pay my check and repeatedly watching Barbra Streisand sing “Don’t Rain on My Parade.” Yeah, life after 50 truly is magical.

You can contact this geezer at Davidhull59@aol.com

NY Gay Wedding Consultant Valentine

By Eve Elzenga Valentine’s Day. Love is in the air.

What a great day to become engaged.

And for all you couples planning to do just that, the NY Gay Wedding Consultant wants to remind you to make your dinner plans as soon as possible in a romantic setting – at a favorite restaurant, in front of the fireplace at your house, or maybe at Wegmans Pittsford, where a full-service Valentine extravaganza is staged every year.

It is never too early to make a reservation at a restaurant. Call now.

But of course the main entrée of any engagement is the ring. Think locally as you shop in family-owned jewelry and antique stores. Estate rings may be just what you are searching for and you may find them in price

points lower than something brand new.

Of course you can always use a placeholder ring – a band of paper or craft-store “gem” until you have time to go together to choose something for each of you.

Or maybe you have a family ring that can be up-cycled for your life together, or that has elements that can be used in new rings that you design.

And now that you are engaged, it’s time for a party to share that great news with family and friends. You don’t need to have a wedding date set yet to celebrate. Have a potluck, a cocktail party at a hotel bar – the Hyatt Downtown comes to mind, or make it more formal if that’s what you and maybe your parents would like. You can always rent a swell place like the American Association of University Women and throw a cocktail party and/or dinner there.

It is the celebration that matters. We have all waited so long for our turn to shout to the world that we are in love -- don’t hesitate to announce it every chance you get.

The people around us are truly delighted for us. And the more we announce our lifelong commitments, the more stereotypes and prejudice we eliminate.

Once you have a date set for the wedding, it’s time to begin planning. Popular wedding venues book up more than a year in advance.

Begin thinking about what you want your day to look like – the actual, physical setting you see yourself in. Maybe it’s near a body of water, in the Finger Lakes at a winery, at a sophisticated hotel, a park, a gracious old mansion, or at a BBQ in your back yard.

Research the options online or work with a wedding consultant who knows all the venues and vendors. And don’t forget to ask about their experience with gay couples.

Ask for references.

Check it out carefully. Read and re-read the contract you are presented with. Deposits are nonrefundable on wedding venues.

Best wishes to all of you soon-to-be engaged couples. Enjoy the glow of happiness.

And if you need help, I’m here. ■

FEBRUARY 2012 • number 453 • gay alliance of the genesee valley • the empty closet

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Community Find the friends and funand youcommon need Find the friends, fun, interests you’re looking for through inthe your neighborhood of the LGBT various groups listed below. community.

35 Year Landmark in the Gay Community

EMPIRE BEARS The Bears have been playing games and cards a lot this winter. We like to stay warm with friends, share good food, and snuggle.

Recently, members have attended shows at Blackfriars, Downstairs Cabaret, and the Auditorium Theatre. We’re organizing trips to hockey, soccer, and lacrosse games. We eat at the Wintonaire every Wednesday at 6 p.m. We go to movies, concerts, and dinner together. Members go to winter reunions for Jones Pond and Hillside. Many members plan to attend Drenched Fur in Erie later this winter. We hang out at the Forum, where a great new bunch of guys have taken over the BEAR nights on first Saturdays. We host a Bear potluck every second Saturday at the GAGV Youth Center at 6:30. Bring a dish, and we have the rest.

Check us out at our new website www.empirebears.com.

(Community continues on page 26)

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v er

Est. 1975

years

Serving Roches ter’s gay community

gay community

Est. 1975

The Avenue Pub 522 Monroe Avenue 585-244-4960

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Serving Roches ter’s years

D-I Rochester meets weekly at 5 p.m. at St. Luke’s and St. Simon’s Church, 17 S. Fitzhugh St., corner of Broad St. We have the following services and activities for the month of February, 2012.

First Sunday: Episcopal Mass/Healing Service, with music; Second Sunday: Roman Catholic Liturgy of the Word, with music; Third Sunday: Quiet Episcopal Mass in the Chapel; Fourth Sunday: Evening Prayer, followed by a Potluck Supper.

February Pot Luck Theme: “My Big Fat Greek Pot Luck”. Lent has begun for most denominations, but Sunday, Feb. 26 is the day before the Greek Orthodox Lent begins. So what better way to celebrate with our friends of Greek heritage than to have a potluck meal with Greek food! No time to cook? Perhaps you could “Hummus a tune” for your supper? Just kidding… join us with or without a dish to pass.

There is always plenty to share FUN FEBRUARY EVENT: We are hosting a Cabin Party/ Pot Luck and Game Night on Saturday, Feb. 18 from 4:30-9:30 p.m. at a local town park. You and your friends are invited to join us. Further details can be found at our website ( http://www. di-rochester.org/) or by calling the DI

30

Dignity-Integrity

The Avenue Pub

v er

The Rochester Butch-Femme Connection will have ONE supper event in February 2012. On Saturday, Feb. 18, we will meet at Jay’s Diner on Route 15 (West Henrietta Road) at 7 p.m.

For further information on the Connection, contact Kerry/Max at (585) 288-7208, email DressyFemme@ aol.com or check out our Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/bfconnection.

Hotline at 585-234-5092.

News from the Pews: Our Fifth Annual Hymn Sing with Tim Schramm was a success! Because it was held on a weekday evening, we had a few new faces in the audience. A great time was had by all! We’re hoping to have another one next year… put it on your calendar!

Lent begins with Ash Wednesday on Feb. 22. Check the website to find out what our program during that time will be.

An apology: We had some problems with our Hotline for a while; seems the phone company updated their technology and it took us a bit of time to catch up. All done though… now you can leave messages and we can update it with our events! If you tried and couldn’t get through to us, we apologize!

for o

Butch Femme Connection

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Community (Community continued from page 25)

Equality Rochester/MENYRochester After taking a brief break following the successful passage of Marriage Equality legislation in New York, EqualityROC is back in full swing.

The two primary goals for 2012 are the successful repeal of the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) working under the umbrella of Marriage Equality New York which has recently merged with Marriage Equality USA and the passage of the Gender NonDiscrimination Act (GENDA) in the New York State Legislature working with Empire State Pride Agenda.

Many exciting events are being planned. All are invited to our regular monthly meetings held on second Mondays at Equal Grounds Coffee House, 750 South Ave., 7-8:30 p.m. Also please join us for the Marriage Equality USA Kickoff Party being held Thursday, Feb. 16, 6:30-8 p.m. at Downtown United Presbyterian Church, 121 Fitzhugh St. 14608. Brian Silva, new Executive Director of Marriage Equality USA will be there to discuss the vision of Marriage Equality USA and share ways that Rochester can advance the fight for marriage at the federal level. For information: Anne.Tischer1@gmail.com, (585) 4260862.

JUST US GUYS Our group is off to a great start with a well attended gathering this past month to hear Brian Quinn, a health trainer, respond to our questions regarding exercise and fitness. We left the session pledging to stick with our New Year’s resolution of maintaining good health and well being.

The Feb. 14 gathering will be hosted by staff of AIDSCare Outreach who will involve us in a Focus Group discussion.

The program begins at 6:30 p.m. in the lower level conference room at AIDSCare, 259 Monroe Ave. Just Us Guys provides a routine monthly gathering open to men of all ages for the purpose of extending friendships and contacts in a social environment. Gatherings are held on the second Tuesday of the month. For more information about the group and the February meeting, contact Ron at 729-2259 or email rmatter1@rochester.rr.com.

Out & Equal The second Thursdays Networking Event will take place Thursday Feb. 9, from 5:30-7:30 p.m., at the Images Lounge of the Marriott Airport, 1890 Ridge Road West, located near I-390.

the empty closet • the gay alliance of the genesee valley • number 453 • FEBRUARY 2012 The event is free, with cash bar and complimentary hors d’oeuvres. A 50/50 Raffle will benefit the GAGV and Pride 2012. RSVP at www.oeNYfingerlakes. groupsite.com.

An ERG Leadership Roundtable is planned for Tuesday, Feb. 21, from 5-6:30 p.m., hosted by University of Rochester, River Campus. Join regional Employee Resource Group leaders to share best practices, gather ideas for programming. For RSVP and directions to the conference room at the university, please contact Ralph Carter, at 585-2655904 or ralph.carter@xerox.com. More information at www.oeNYfingerlakes. groupsite.com.

RAINBOW SAGE WOMEN PEERS Live and in person Roundtable Conversation with peers — in real life, offline confidential discussion as varied as the voices of lesbian women attending late mornings, last Mondays.

Join us 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., in the Gay Alliance Library, first floor (Auditorium Theatre), 875 East Main St. Questions? Contact ebrophy@frontiernet.net.

Rochester Trans Group Even though it was just two days after Thanksgiving we had 15 people at our meeting on Saturday, Nov. 26.

Kelly Clark, the Gay Alliance Community Safety Director, told us what to do if we ever find ourselves in the situation of having to deal with the police.

One of the first things to do is to stay calm (or as calm as possible). Then cooperate with the officer(s) (even if you don’t think you’ve done anything wrong).

Show your ID, if asked, and keep your hands in full view. If you’re in transition and your ID doesn’t match your current gender presentation, explain that you are in the process of transition.

One of our members said she carried a letter from her doctor stating that she was under care for gender transitioning and although she never had to use it, it gave her some comfort just having it. Be polite (again even if you feel you’ve done nothing wrong). And as on almost every police show we’ve ever seen, you do have the right to remain silent — you just have to say so out loud.

A couple of people brought up harassment by security guards in the malls and stores. It was pointed out that if you’re dressed differently from your assigned gender you might be subject to more scrutiny. Kelly also said she works closely with the Rochester Police Department on all of our LGBT issues and if we had any complaints to contact her and let her know.

She also handed out a brochure published by the ACLU titled: “What to do if you’re stopped by Police, Immigration Agents or the FBI”. It has a lot more detailed information and is available at the Gay Alliance’s website: www.gayalliance.org under the Community Safety Program link.

At our Saturday, Dec. 31 meeting we learned that one out of every 2,000 babies is born with genitals that make it uncertain whether the baby is boy or girl by just looking. So what happens then? The parents of the unfortunate baby are told, “Your child has a gender deformity which we will fix surgically. We can make a malformed girl into a boy or boy into a girl and they’ll never know the difference if we all keep the secret from them.”

Then five times a day here in the U.S. a forced infantile gender mutilation is performed that is considered by the intersex community as a forced gender assignment. And this is: Wrong. Wrong.

Wrong.

With yet another full house, Jim Costich, an intersexed person (see Interview, page 7) gave a heartfelt, enthusiastic and at times graphic presentation about what happens. ■

FEBRUARY 2012 • number 453 • gay alliance of the genesee valley • the empty closet

Arts & Entertainment

Angels in America opens at Geva: a talk with director David Henderson

By Susan Jordan The first part of Tony Kushner’s Angels in America, “Millennium Approaches,” will have its official opening at Geva Nextstage on March 23, produced by

Openly gay musician counts his blessings

By Robert Palmer Building a successful career in the arts is not for the faint of heart. The competition is stiff.

Narrowing the path to accommodate a gay man with a passion for performing Early Music and Baroque opera might at worst shave the odds of success, and at best redouble the need for determination.

Enter the ebullient Michael Beattie, conductor and keyboardist, an Eastman School and Boston University grad who has navigated that tricky course to the doorstep of ensembles as impressive and diverse as the Boston Symphony, Mark Morris Dance Group and Pittsburgh Opera. This year, he excitedly

Method Machine. The second half, “Perestroika,” will be staged next October.

“We are so excited to be presenting Angels in America,” says Artistic Director David Henderson. “Kushner’s play is the ultimate in modern theater. Great characters, wicked special effects and a message that is vital.”

Henderson teams up with company founder Marcy J.

Savastano (Harper) and Jill Rittinger (the Angel), Judy Molner (Hannah) and Peter Doyle (Roy Cohn). The company will also collaborate with acclaimed international video artist Monica Duncan to create the special effects and video for the production.

Angels in America is set in late 1985 and early 1986, as the first wave of the AIDS epidem-

imparts, his itinerary will intersect with the respected Chicago Opera Theater where he will conduct the Handel opera Teseo.

And on Sunday, Feb. 26, you will find the lively, successful and openly gay musician imparting his enthusiasm for the music of Vivaldi, Telemann, Boismortier, Quantz and Leclair at 4 p.m. in Downtown United Presbyterian Church, along with the seven other Baroque chamber musicians of Fioritura.

The concert is part of the seventh season of the Pegasus Early Music series in Rochester, brainchild of local musician Deborah Fox who plays, among other things, the theorbo: a bass lute that looks something like an oversize mandolin stretched to adult human height.

“Michael is a great all ‘round musician: a wonderful harpsi-

chordist and organist,” Fox says.

“It’s fantastic to play chamber music with him because he listens, responds and is very easy to communicate with.“ Has being openly gay impacted the career of the 50-year-old Baroque devotee, whose musicmaking is often entwined with – and performed in – the church?

“It’s a really good question,” says Beattie, who came out at age 33. “I think if you ask that question of a lot of organists around the country, you will get widely varied answers – some pretty upsetting.”

Born in Rhode Island but living since age 10 in Greater Boston, Beattie said in a phone interview that he counted himself lucky to have averted most such confrontation.

“I’ve been extremely fortu (Musician continues page 28)

ic in America is escalating and Ronald Reagan has been elected to a second term in the White House. This Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning play tells the story of a young gay man with AIDS and his frightened, unfaithful lover; a closeted Mormon lawyer and his valiumaddicted wife; the right wing, closeted gay New York lawyer Roy Cohn and a steel-winged, prophecy-bearing angel -- as well as the ghost of Ethel Rosenberg and other supernatural apparitions.

The lives of these disparate characters intersect, intertwine, collide and are blown apart during a time of heartbreak, reaction and transformation. Ranging from earth to heaven, from the political to the intimate to the visionary and supernatural, Angels in America is an epic exploration of love, justice, identity and theology, of the difficulty, terror and necessity of change.

Henderson, who is directing, told The Empty Closet that the only time either part of the play has been performed locally was at Nazareth College, around a decade ago, when “Millennium Approaches” was staged.

“We approached Geva last February about doing it,” he said. “They were very excited.

It’s a project that any theatre company wants to do but they don’t take it on for many reasons. Method Machine is a semiprofessional theatre, so we can do productions less expensively.

The expectations people have of a company like Geva producing it, rather than Method Machine, are very different. It’s about creativity and finding solutions that are viable for a small company like ours. It means we can be a little more sparing on our sets and costumes than Geva can.

“It’s going to be awesome.

The advantages of being at Geva are their subscribers, public awareness being greater, and the production support, like the box office and marketing. We usually have to split our focus creatively because of financial concerns, but in this case Geva is a really great support for us.”

Henderson says that the biggest challenge is a combination of engaging the audience and maintaining the actors’ stamina to perform for three hours. With the “Perestroika” production next fall, which entails a sevenhour marathon with a dinner break and four intermissions,

27 audience stamina also becomes a factor.

Henderson says, “It’s going to be a great experience for the audience and for us. We’ve gotten more interest than we expected. This is our biggest project yet. Eight people in the cast play 25 characters, and there are also special effects.”

Video artist Monica Duncan is creating those special effects.

Henderson notes, “There are a couple of ghosts that appear to Prior (the hero) and Roy Cohn.

The ghost of Ethel Rosenberg appears to Cohn, and the other two ghosts are Prior One and Prior Two, from the 12th and 13th centuries. Then there’s the angel, and what’s called a flaming aleph, which is part of Jewish mysticism. We are going to use lights, video and sleight of hand stuff and try to mix it up a little bit. Most of the special effects come in the third act, when you could say the roller coaster starts coming down the hill.”

The play takes us back to 1985/86, the Reagan years, when the AIDS epidemic was in its first wave. What keeps it relevant now that the Millennium has gone by and AIDS is a global epidemic?

Henderson says, “At the heart of it is a story about struggle, relationships, faith… and the main character happens to have AIDS. It’s not an ‘AIDS play.’

“A friend said to me, ‘Instead of me living with AIDS, AIDS has been living with me.’ That made me go back and look at the play again. There’s a straight couple whose marriage is in trouble, a lot about Mormonism and Judaism. It touches so many things – love, religion, friendship, death and life. The biggest struggle the hero is having is not with his health, but with his faith and belief.

“So it’s about a lot of things, including AIDS. There‘s a lot of self hate connected with the Roy Cohn character and the Mormon character Joe Pitt, who struggles with his sexual identity. The play isn’t about a particular issue. It’s universal. Taking a less narrow view exposes the play to so many more people.

“Tony Kushner is so brilliant. It’s one of my biggest dreams, to work on this play.

Also Marcy’s dream and our whole company’s too.” ■

Michael Beattie.

28

the empty closet • the gay alliance of the genesee valley • number 453 • FEBRUARY 2012 was written while the author was living with his partner in Rochester, offering an added level of interest for local readers.

An Impossible Dream Story is an honest story of love, loss, redemption and self-discovery. It highlights the mistakes, misses, triumphs and rewards one experiences on a challenging journey through life, and is written in a style that is both easy and fun to read. It is a welcome addition to anyone’s bookshelf.

James Mack is a Licensed Associate Real Estate Broker with Gurney Becker and Bourne in Buffalo, NY. He holds a BA and an MBA from SUNYAB and is an avid supporter of the arts in Western New York. He is President of the Board of Buffalo United Artists, a theater-producing group, and is a supporting member of the Albright Knox Art Gallery, the Burchfield-Penney Art Center, the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra and Shea’s Performing Arts Center.

Fioratura, an Early Music group, will appear with Michael Beattie on Feb. 26 at Downtown United Presbyterian Church.

( Musician continued from page 27) nate; I live in what is sometimes referred to as the People’s Republic of Cambridge,” he says, expressing gratitude for the social strides of big Eastern cites.

“But in many areas of the country – if you talked to a lot of small-town musicians…” the answers might sharply contrast.

Beattie’s parents were not professional musicians. Both played piano, “but I was the first one crazy enough to try to make a career of it,” he says.

Now applying his versatile fingers to harpsichord, organ, piano and the conductor’s score, Beattie originally studied with Eastman cornerstone pianist Barry Snyder – then headed to Boston U., thinking he might become a singers’ accompanist.

“Of course, I went to college like so many other relatively talented pianists, thinking I was going to make my living” (as a concert pianist),” he says. “But I think the real transition for me was meeting Craig Smith,” the late progenitor of Boston’s Emmanuel Music. Smith was a seminal figure in the Baroque music revival of the ‘70s and ‘80s, and collaborator with famed contemporary American theatrical director Peter Sellars in the controversial staging of Mozart operas.

Early on, Smith made a liar of Beattie. Literally. “‘You really should play some of our cantatas,’ (Smith) said to me. ‘Do you read figured bass?’” Smith asked Beattie.

The notation is a kind of musical shorthand of the period.

“I said ‘yes’ -- and of course I didn’t,” Beattie admitted. “But I taught myself, played a cantata, and was hooked. I absolutely fell in love at age 27 with that repertoire.” By his mid-30s, Beattie was firmly footed on the Early Music path.

Though founder Craig Smith passed away in 2007, Beattie maintains connection with his Boston base: Emmanuel Music. His position as part-time artistic administrator affords him the financial ability to “pick and choose” other opportunities, he says, rather than grasp at everything that comes along.

Still, versatility is the hook upon which Beattie has hung his success. He speaks humbly, almost reverently, of his first opportunity to conduct Baroque opera – Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, in 2009 -- for Glimmerglass Opera, baseball-loving Cooperstown NY’s other cultural treasure.

“Michael Beattie’s conducting of the slimmed down, continuo-added orchestra was ravishing and thoroughly honest to Baroque practice,” wrote Robert Levine of Opera Now. Loanne Sydney Lessner of Opera News said the work was “led sparklingly from the harpsichord.”

Rochester Philharmonic cellist and fellow Early Music enthusiast Christopher Haritatos will join Beattie in February, in shaping the musical lines of continuo – the underlying heartbeat of Baroque chamber works.

“He’s a great person” to have on the team, Haritatos says. “He has a great rhythmic and harmonic and gestural sense for the bass line. It’s very easy to play with him.”

Beattie is equally commendatory. He says the proliferation of Baroque periodinstrument performance has significantly raised the quality of such public offerings in the past 20 or 30 years.

“Gonzalo (Ruiz) is one of the really finest Baroque oboe players performing today,” he says of the player joining the Fioritura group for February’s concert. “Just hearing these wonderful period instruments played in such interesting combinations…

“Everyone should experience these colorful sounds.”

Book review: An Impossible Dream Story

By James Mack J. V. Petretta’s first novel, An Impossible Dream Story, (Dog Ear Publishing, 2011) begins as the story of a young man’s struggle to find his identity in a quickly changing world and ends decades later as the main character faces and overcomes one of his greatest challenges.

Very loosely based on an outline of the author’s own experiences (which have been embellished, then further fictionalized), the novel introduces us to Vinny, a child growing up in Indiana during the sixties who, despite many talents, receives very little approval from his hard-drinking, tough-talking father. Vinny’s love affair with bicycle riding offers a safe harbor in the midst of this chaotic home life, from which he has “big time” dreams of escaping, surviving, thriving and, finally, succeeding.

Vinny joins the U.S. Army and does a stint in Southeast Asia, gets married and starts a family, then becomes a successful businessman. After many years of internal struggles, he eventually comes out of the closet. Unlike a typical coming out story where the character’s coming out signals the end of the story, this story continues with Vinny’s head-first dive into unbridled sexual adventures, resulting in him facing another challenge -- an HIV diagnosis. Undeterred by this diagnosis, Vinny returns to his beloved sport of bicycle riding and organizes a 5,000 mile cross country bicycle tour to raise funds and promote awareness of AIDS. The story is told in the first person from Vinny’s perspective and realistically chronicles the character’s personal struggles, emotional setbacks and eventual achievements. Describing one of his first bicycle races he writes: “I don’t know if it was my damned determination, or perhaps the weird way I wobbled Paula’s two-wheeled wagon, but no one dared devour my lead.”

Much of the later part of the novel takes place in Western New York -- Vinny moves to Buffalo — and in fact most of the novel

RGMC speed dating event: All the single boys put your hands up!

On Feb. 22, at 6:30 p.m. at the Flour City Diner, the Rochester Gay Men’s Chorus presents “Cruisin’ with Cupid”, a speed dating event.

The Chorus says, “We’ve put a song in your hearts, and now it’s time to put a lump in your throat while we help you look for love.

“How it works: You provide the Chorus with your contact information, which will remain private and available to event organizers only. Once registered, you will be assigned a number, name tag and a score sheet to take with you. In the spirit of ‘Speed Dating,’ you will spend about seven minutes with each registered participant.

“What will you ask them? That’s entirely up to you. However, we will provide suggestions for the shy types, liquid encouragement via a cash bar, and complimentary appetizers for the nervous eaters.

“At the end of the event you will review your notes and determine which of the men shot an arrow through your heart, which have the potential, and which of them were just utterly bat guano crazy.

You can choose as many men as you like!

Then just hand us your scorecard and go home. We do the rest! If the same person you scored as a match, also scored you as a match, you’ll get each other’s contact information.”

Matches and contact information will be distributed by email the day after the event. Tickets are $20 and pre-registration is strongly encouraged. Please contact Amy Scolaro at ascolaro@thergmc.org to register today and buy your tickets at www.thergmc.org.

Film review: A sister outsider in “Pariah”

By Rev. Irene Monroe Seldom do I see my image anywhere, especially portrayed in non-stereotypical and non-heterosexist ways on the silver screen. As a matter of fact, if you Google “black lesbians” or “black lesbians in film,” you’ll get a plethora of porn sites to visit.

But writer-director Dee Rees’s semi-autobiographical coming of age drama Pariah gives me a glimpse of my younger self-growing up in Brooklyn.

Pariah is about Alike (ah-LEE-kay), a virginal 17-year-old African American lesbian high school student living in the Fort Greene section of Brooklyn who doesn’t know how to come out to her parents, who’s eager to have her first sexual experience, and who’s not sure of the type of butch lesbian she wants to be -- “soft stud,” one of the “Aggressive Lesbians,” a subculture of young butch lesbians who adopt a gangster hip-hop persona to compete for femme women, or something totally different.

“Alike knows that she loves women; that’s not the question. The question is ‘how to be,’” Rees told the Boston Globe.

“And so, in my own struggle, a large part of my question was how to be in the world.”

One of the ways of defining how to be in the world, especially for high schoolers, is through clothes. But with a mother -- Audrey (Kim Wayans) -- who demonstrates zero tolerance for her daughter’s non-gender-conforming ways, especially exhibited by Alike’s taste for non-frilly femme attire, we see Alike forced to be a gender chameleon -- changing into her butch togs going to school and out of them going home.

Pariah wouldn’t be an authentic black coming-out tale if religious homophobia didn’t show its countenance on someone.

And Audrey is that person.

With the hopes of her shy tomboyish daughter blossoming into a more socially friendly and feminine girl, Audrey convinces a churchgoer that their daughters, who are in the same class, should walk to school together for safety reasons. And not surprising to those of us of the Black Church, Alike’s first sexual experience is with one of the churchgoer’s daughters.

To find antecedents or self-reflections of yourself, especially in American films, is difficult, which is why Pariah title and theme of portraying black lesbian life, albeit marginalized in both African American church and white LGBTQ communities, in a positive and realistic light is thoroughly refreshing.

Occasionally, however, we will see present-day portrayals of black lesbians on major television channels and in major movie house across the country, but not by out black lesbians.

For example, in the 2009 film Precious, Paula Patton plays Ms. Blu Rain, a lesbian teacher that helps Precious (Gabourey Sidibe) embrace her life’s worth and her sexuality. Patton inspires Precious to learn to read, and to write, giving her a daily writing assignment that eventually leads Precious coming into her own. And with Patton understanding both the NY welfare system and the NY Public School system, she is portrayed in the film as both an intellectual and activist who’s not going to let Precious fail or fall under her watch.

Another example: in 1996, we have Queen Latifah’s spot-on portrayal of a butch lesbian in the movie Set It Off, that, of course, set off a conflagration of queries about her sexual orientation. Last summer Latifah’s character on the show “Single Ladies” -- which she executive produces -was accidentally outed, which worked out in a positive way for the character. Viewers and the blogosphere began to speculate that Latifah was channeling her personal life through her small-screen character.

But films written and directed by women of color that reach the major silver screen are rare, and for films by LBTQ women of color, it’s even rarer. The last time I saw a film written and directed by a LBTQ woman of color that reached the level of mass distribution and international acclaim as Pariah was sixteen years ago.

In 1996, Cheryl Dunye wrote, directed and starred in her first film -- The Watermelon Woman -- which was also the first African American lesbian feature film.

Dunye’s “mockumentary” is a scathing critique of the racist cinematic representation of black women. The protagonist of the film, played by Dunye, makes a film about an obscure black actress from the 1930s known for playing stereotypical “mammy” roles relegated to black actresses during that era. In this faux-cinema-verite account of a black lesbian filmmaker uncovering the hidden histories of black women’s lives -- straight and LBTQ -- controversial cultural critic Camille Paglia makes a cameo appearance informing Dunye that the Mammy archetype once represented a black goddess figure.

And unbeknownst to the general public, 20 feature films have been directed by black lesbians since Dunye’s The Watermelon Woman. Dunye’s mockumentary came out during the height of black queer cinema, from 1991-1996, dubbed the “Golden Age,” when black lesbians’ films were predominately documentaries

FEBRUARY 2012 • number 453 • gay alliance of the genesee valley • the empty closet seen unfortunately by small audiences.

“That was the period of time when we had the most women producing the widest variety of work. Approximately 50 percent of all work produced was made during that five-year time period. Very little work is being produced today by out black lesbian media makers. So maybe Dee Rees is part of the trend of the mainstreaming of niche content that we see happening across all media platforms,” African American lesbian filmmaker Yvonne Welbon, founder and director of Sisters in Cinema, told The Root reporter Salamishah Tillet.

It’s my hope that Pariah will be part of the trend of the mainstreaming of niche content. Black lesbian cinematic representation is long overdue.

The Lives of Transgender People studies trans experience On Nov. 20, the Transgender Day of Remembrance, “The Lives of Transgender People,” a book detailing the experiences of thousands of transgender Americans, was released by Columbia University Press.

The book, by Genny Beemyn and Sue Rankin, is based on a survey of nearly 3,500 self-identified transgender individuals and follow-up interviews with more than 400 of the participants, making it one of the largest studies involving transgender people in the United States. The book’s release coincided with the International Transgender Day of Remembrance, an event remembering and honoring individuals who have been murdered in the previous year because of their gender identity or expression.

Beemyn and Rankin consider how transgender people experienced their gender identities growing up and how they came to see themselves as transgender. “One of the findings that surprised us was the wide variety of ways that peo-

ple identified,” states Beemyn, the director of Stonewall Center at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and a transgender person hirself (a pronoun used by Beemyn to reflect a gender identity that does not fit into conventional male or female gender categories).

Noted Beemyn: “When asked to describe their gender identities, the participants provided more than a hundred different responses.”

Rather than defining a monolithic transgender identity, “The Lives of Transgender People” documents a transgender spectrum of a broad range of identities, including androgynous, gender-nonconforming, genderqueer, transfeminine, transmasculine, and transgender identities.

Given the lack of research on the lives of and climate for transgender people in the United States today, “The Lives of Transgender People” breaks new ground by examining the participants’ concerns for their physical safety, their fear of being outed as transgender people, and their experiences with employment discrimination and harassment. Beemyn and Rankin find that, despite greater societal recognition of transgender people and a growing transgender rights movement, individuals who are or who are perceived as transgender commonly continue to face discrimination, harassment, and bias-motivated violence.

Said Rankin, “The climate for transgender people is less than welcoming.

Our results parallel the findings of other recent studies indicating that transgender youth in particular are at great risk for gender bias.”

To address these inequalities, Beemyn and Rankin call for policymakers to take action. Said Beemyn, “The widespread adoption of transgender-inclusive workplace nondiscrimination policies and practices would provide a crucial foundation for transgender people as a whole to lead healthier, more dignified, and more economically secure lives.” ■

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Travel They Call It Mellow Yolo

By Merle Exit The last leg of our California trip was Yolo County, the heart of Sacramento Valley. The city of Davis is the hub of the county and Woodland, the county seat.

Nancy, Barb and I stayed in Davis at the Hallmark Inn at 110 F Street.

Great hotel and great location for all we needed to do.

Since much of the day had been spent completing Santa Rosa and traveling to Davis, we relaxed a bit before going to dinner at Seasons Restaurant, abutting the hotel. Seasons Restaurant serves contemporary American cuisine and utilizes fresh, local products. The restaurant features a wood burning oven, open kitchen, a Chef ’s table, and private dining facilities. Most important to me was that they use locally grown ingredients from the many area farms.

“Farm to table” has become a cuisine in some parts of the country and with a state like California growing grapes, olives, artichokes, avocados and rice, just to name a few, Nancy, Barb and I were off to visit some of their birth places.

The nearby city of Esparto is the locale of the Haag Family Farm, where walnuts are their thing. We met coowner Claire J. Haag, who gave us the 101 on walnuts. www.walnuts.US. Wanting to do a “pick your own” and one close to Davis? Impossible Acres is the name and just west of Davis (37945 Rd. 31 - Covell). I never knew how many varieties of blackberries existed!

Loads of raspberries and both Bing and

Rainier cherries to choose from as well.

Seasonal cuisine is the fare at Monticello at 630 G Street in Davis. Brunch, lunch and dinner menus showcase seasonal appropriateness, regional resources, freshness, and minimal interference between source and plate. Rhonda Gruska and her husband Tony are the owners, while Tony is the Executive Chef. A third co-owner is Jim Eldon, “the farmer”.

Tucos Wine Market and Cafe was just down the street from the Hallmark Inn. Pru Mendez is the owner and Executive Chef. The menu is a bit worldly but with many Spanish influences and using local producers.

Ciocolat, at 301 B Street (530-7533088) was the place for High Tea. I’m sure that you can get coffee, but hot tea should be part of this meal. Food is meant to be bites as you sip your tea and chat with your friends over four courses.

The Heidrick Ag History Center introduces visitors to the marvels of agriculture and commercial trucking through 130,000 square feet of interactive, one-of-a-kind exhibits. The cornerstones of these exhibits are the Fred C. Heidrick Antique Ag Collection, the world’s largest and most unique collection of one-of-a-kind antique agricultural equipment, and the nearby Hays Antique Truck Museum.

The History Center exhibits tractors and harvesting machinery from the late 1800s through the middle of the last century. With all of that running around I felt almost as old as some of the artifacts. The $8 admission price gets you both museums. ■

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the empty closet • the gay alliance of the genesee valley • number 453 • FEBRUARY 2012

The Gay Alliance plays a central role in advocating for the fair and equal treatment of all people, regardless of their sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression.

Gay Alliance of the Genesee Valley w w w . gayalliance . org

SAVE THE DATE: Saturday, March 10, 2012 The Gay alliance Presents: North East Regional Prides (NERP) Conference is coming to town!

Community Dinner, Show and Dance Featuring well-known, popular, National and International Entertainers 6-11pm at The Radisson Rochester Riverside Go to: www.GayAlliance.org for Updates and Advance Tickets Only $45 for Dinner, Show and Dance and $20 for Show and Dance Only Silent Auction, Door Prizes and a Cash Bar Proceeds go to the Gay Alliance for Rochester PRIDE 2012 (July 6-15)

Save the dates: Rochester Pride 2012 July 6–15 Pride Committee: Carrie Vernon – Chair Michael Hardy – Past Chair & Marketing Jeff Markarian & Zayne Austin – Picnic Co-Chairs Bill Schaefer – Parade Co-Chair Joe Murphy – Festival Co-Chair Alysa Stryker – Sassy in the Southwedge Peter Mohr – Sponsorship & Events Lyjha Wilton/Louis Mistrette – Festival Phil Rawleigh – Events There is time to get involved or express your opinion!

Please e-mail Carrie Vernon at: carriev@gayalliance.org

Coming Out, Bi Zach Coming out is like beginning a new life.

Some have it good, Others have strife.

Then you have those that end it with a knife.

For me, I had it good, I had it bad.

In the end I had friends, But in the beginning I was alone and sad.

Once you’re out, You’re a target.

Everybody looks at you, With smiles or sneers.

You begin to realize Who your real friends are.

They should love you, Regardless of straight or queer.

I had names shot at me, Faggot, homo and queer.

But I had friends who told me, “You got to persevere.”

Here I am today, Writing for tomorrow’s youth.

I’m not holding nothing back, What I say is the truth.

I Am, By Nereida Borges I I I I I

am a Gay Ally. wonder if anyone understands. hear what other people say. see many LGBTQs struggle. want to help.

I I I I I I

am a Gay Ally. pretend not to care what someone thinks. feel hurt when my friends get hurt. touch the hearts of others. worry about their safety. cry when they cry.

I I I I I I

am a Gay Ally. understand who they are. sa y to them, “You have the right.” dream that one day the hate will end. try to protect my LGBTQ friends. hope they all know I love them.

I am a Gay Ally!

Do you need Internet access?

The Gay Alliance Library has two computers with internet access available during library hours: Sunday: 3-5pm • Monday & Wednesday: 6-8pm Computers are part of our David Bohnett Cyber Center

The Gay Alliance of the Genesee Valley: is a non-profit agency, dedicated to cultivating a healthy, inclusive environment where lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans-gender (LGBT) people are safe, thriving and enjoying equal rights. We are a coalition of individuals and groups working to empower LGBT people, to affirm their identities, and to create an atmosphere where the diversity of our community can thrive both collectively and separately. We educate and advocate for civil rights for all and for the eradication of homophobia. • Address: 875 East Main St., Rochester, New York 14605 Hours: Mon.-Fri., 9 am-5 pm • Phone: (585) 244-8640 • Fax: (585) 244-8246 • Web: www.gayalliance.org Board President: John Altieri Executive Director: Sue Cowell • Administrative Assistant: Laur McSpadden • Education and Outreach Director: Scott Fearing Wellness and Safety: Kelly Clark • Outreach: Jeanne Gainsburg • Youth Program Director: Jessica Cohen The Empty Closet: Editor: Susan Jordan • Designer: Jim Anderson Phone: (585) 244-9030 • Fax: (585) 244-8246 • Advertising: (585) 244-9030 • E-mail: emptycloset@gagv.us

FEBRUARY 2012 • number 453 • gay alliance of the genesee valley • the empty closet

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Program Notes Community Safety/Anti-Violence The Out for Justice workshop for February is “Fair Housing,” on Feb. 8 at 6:30 p.m. in the GAGV Youth Center, first floor, 875 E. Main St. Laurie Lambrix, attorney from the Monroe County Legal Assistance Center, will talk about discrimination in renting and home-buying, as well as tenants’ rights and other issues. Free.

Save the date: in March, Out for Justice presents the Legal Expo on March 24, a day-long expo at the GAGV Youth Center, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. This event is part of LGBT Health Month. There will be information tables, workshops and free legal services.

February is Dating Violence Awareness Month. The Gay Alliance’s Anti Violence Project (AVP) will be at RIT, talking about healthy LGBT relationships as part of RIT’s dating violence awareness programming.

If you have any questions about these events, or if you have experienced harassment, domestic abuse or violence, please call Kelly Clark at 244-8640 ext 19.

Gay Alliance Youth Another save the date: The Youth Group sponsors the first-ever Queer College Fair, Saturday March 31, at the Auditorium Center, 875 E. Main St. (call Jess Cohen at 2448640 ext 13, or see March EC, for venue update). Noon- 4 p.m. Colleges and universities in WNY, CNY and the Capital District have been invited to have information tables.

There will be workshops for students and parents on issues including financial aid, coming out in college and filling out college applications. There will also be an opportunity to talk with representatives from college Pride groups, as well as admissions counselors.

Jess Cohen and Youth Group member Dontaee Williamson attended the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force’s Creating Change conference in Baltimore, Md. in January.

Legal Answers for LGBT People and Families

2012 workshop series Join us each month for legal education that could save you money & heartache!

Fair Housing & The LGBT Community 6:30-8pm, February 9, 2012 Gay Alliance Youth Community Center Auditorium Theater, 875 E. Main St, 1st floor, Rochester, New York 14605 Info: 585-244-8640 • Free and Open to the Public

GARD

The Gay Alliance On-line Resource Directory (GARD) The on-line community tool providing local, statewide and national resources, 24/7 at www.GayAlliance.org.

Gay Alliance Youth The Gay Alliance offers Youth Services for Rochester area LGBTQ and allied youth ages 13-25

Monday and Wednesday: Drop-in: 2-6pm Sunday Support groups: Ages 13-23: 2-4pm Ages 18-25: 4:30-6pm Special Interest: Transgender Youth, Arts/Crafts, Movies, Writing

A big thank you goes out to our amazing volunteer Brad Smith for almost four years of service working as the Gay Alliance Volunteer On-line Calendar Manager. Brad, thank you so much for all of the time and energy you put into helping the community have up-to-date information about events. We appreciate all that you gave us. The Gay Alliance welcomes Robert Rogers as our new Volunteer On-line Calendar Manager.

Speak OUT

SpeakOUT training is a great experience for someone new to LGBT issues or someone who has lived or worked with the issues for years. Think of it as professional development for your life, a training-of-trainers that is open to everyone. The class is appropriate for all ages, all identities and will prepare participants to successfully advocate for and address the challenges to full LGBT inclusion.

Next class: Fri., March 2, 6 to 9pm & Sat., March 3, 8:30am to 5pm Class held in the Gay Alliance Youth Center, 875 E. Main Street 14605 Facilitators: Jeanne Gainsburg, Gay Alliance OutReach Coordinator and Scott Fearing, Gay Alliance Program Director, draw upon their 25 plus years of LGBT training and education experience to facilitate the class. A dynamic mix of interactive exercises and lecture make for a fast-paced, intense and valuable learning experience.

Fee: $35 Lunch included on Saturday.

Scholarships available. (Please call or e-mail requests) Space is limited to 30 participants.

For questions: 585-244-8640 or SpeakOUT@gayalliance.org

on

Check out what’s happening at: www.gayalliance.org or contact JessC@gagv.us

Calendar Man

Special Events: Youth Dances, Day of Silence, Big Gay Prom, Pool Table, LGBTQ Youth Library, and Internet Access Fun, friendly, safe adults are needed to volunteer their time and talents, providing positive role models, maybe sharing a talent or skill. Contact Jeanne Gainsburg, Outreach Coordinator for an application: jeanneg@ gagv.us or 585-244-8640, ext. 14.

Speaking Engagements/ Tabling for Dec-Jan December 2011 12/5 - Transgender Youth at Hilton High School GSA 12/6 - LGBT 101 at St. John Fisher College 12/7 - Safe Schools at Halpern Education Center 12/9 - Transgender Issues in Healthcare at Anthony Jordan Health Center 12/12 - Transgender Youth Issues at Hillside AIY Program 12/13 - LGBT Youth Issues at Center For Youth 12/15 - Power of the Personal Story at the Gay Alliance 12/15 - LGBT 101 at Monroe County Pretrial Services 12/3 - Intersex Issues at the Rochester Trans Group

January 2012 1/11 - LGBT Tax Info at the Gay Alliance 1/12 - Transgender Awareness Panel at the Gay Alliance 1/13 - LGBT 101 at Pittsford Mendon High School (five classes) 1/14 - Transgender 101/Gay Alliance History at the Gay Alliance 1/18 - LGBT 101 at SJFC/Wegmans School of Pharmacy 1/19 - SafeZone Training at SUNY Brockport 1/20 - SpeakOUT Training at the Gay Alliance 1/21 - SpeakOUT Training at the Gay Alliance 1/25 - Transgender Healthcare Panel at SJFC/Wegmans School of Pharmacy

Evaluations of the month: “I learned how to come out as an ally and how to respond to questions like, ‘You’re straight, why do you care?’ It was fantastic! Yay! J.” “I wish we had more time! I feel like we could have talked forever.”

“They knew their shit!”

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the empty closet • the gay alliance of the genesee valley • number 453 • FEBRUARY 2012

Resources Check our monthly and ongoing calendar as well as the community section for more groups and events. For further information, call the Gay Alliance at 244-8640 or visit: www.gayalliance.org. And send us your information.

BISEXUALITY ONLINE

AMBI Los Angeles; American Institute of Bisexuality (Journal of Bisexuality); Bay Area Bisexual Network; Bi Café; Bi Definition: Milwaukee; BiNet USA; Bisexual Organizing Project (BOP); Biversity Boston; Boston Bisexual Women’s Network; ComBIne - Columbus, Ohio; Dallas/ Fort Worth Bi Net; Fenway Health’s Bi Health Program; Los Angeles Bi Task Force; New York Area Bisexual Network; Robyn Ochs’s site; Seattle Bisexual Women’s Network; The Bi Writers Association; The Bisexual Resource Center (email brc@biresource.net)

CULTURAL

Rochester Women’s Community Chorus 234-4441. (See Ongoing calendar).

deaf services

Advocacy for Abused Deaf Victims Mailing address: c/o ASADV, P.O. Box 20023, Rochester, NY 14602. 24-Hour Hotline: ASADVhope@gmail.com; VP: 866-936-8976; TTY/ FAX : 585-232-2854.

Lilac Rainbow Alliance for the Deaf (LRAD) Meets second Saturdays, 6-9pm. For location, information: rcoaster@rochester.rr.com Spectrum LGBTQI and Straight Alliance, RIT/NTID. On Facebook

family

CNY Fertility Center Integrative Fertility Care. Support meetings, webinars, workshops. Information: cbriel@cnyfertility.com; www.cnyhealingarts.com Rochester Gay Moms’ Group Support group for lesbian mommies and wannabe mommies in Rochester and surrounding areas. Subscribe: RochesterGayMoms-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.

Lesbian & Gay Family Building Project Headquartered in Binghamton and with a presence throughout Upstate NY, the Project is dedicated to helping LGBTQ people achieve their goals of building and sustaining healthy families. Claudia Stallman, Project Director, 124 Front St., Binghamton, NY 13905; 607-7244308; e-mail: LesGayFamBldg@aol.com. Web: www.PrideAndJoyFamilies.org.

Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) PFLAG’s threefold mission: supporting parents and family members in coming out process; educating the community; advocating on behalf of LGBT family members. Regular meetings: Third Sunday of the month, Open Arms MCC, 740 Marshall Rd. 14624. 1-3pm. PFLAG@ gagv.us; 585-244-8640 x27.

Adoptive Parent Support Group Monthly potluck lunches. For information, location, call Shari, 350-2529.

Angel Food Ministry Box of fresh/frozen food for $30 in advance.

Menu changes monthly. For information and distribution sites, call 585 861-4815.

GENERAL

Women’s Resource Center YWCA, 175 N. Clinton Ave. 546-7740.

HIV/AIDS

Free testing for HIV exposure is available from New York State Department of Health: call Rochester Area Regional Hotline at (585) 423-8081, or 1 800 962-5063 for pay phones or calls outside Rochester. Deaf or hearing impaired people should call (585) 4238120 (TDD.) New Rapid HIV Testing now available in 30-40 minutes! Statewide information can be obtained by calling 1 800 541-AIDS. Other organizations which provide AIDS-related services are as follows: AIDS Care AIDS Care is the leading provider of HIV/AIDS services in Rochester and the Finger Lakes.

On-site services include HIV testing and limited STD screenings, Primary and HIV Specialty

Medical Care, Pharmacy, and many more. AIDS Care satellite offices in Geneva and Bath. AIDS Care is also a leader in providing services and education to members of the LGBT community.

Contact Information: Website: www.acRochester.org. Main Office: 259 Monroe Ave., Rochester, NY 14607; Main Phone: 585-545-7200, Health Services After Hours: 585-258-3363; Case Management After Hours (Lifeline): 585275-5151; Fax: 585-244-6456. Finger Lakes Office: 605 W. Washington St., Geneva, NY 14456, 315-781-6303. Southern Tier Office: 122 Liberty St. Box 624, Bath, NY 14810 607776-9166. The Health Outreach Project: 416 Central Ave., Rochester, NY 14605; 585-4545556.

Gay Alliance of the Genesee Valley Referrals to physicians and service agencies.

(585) 244-8640; www.gayalliance.org.

Victory Alliance University of Rochester Medical Center. One of several research sites worldwide that comprise the HIV Vaccine Trials Network. Rochester site conducts research vaccine studies sponsored

by National Institutes of Health (NIH). 585-7562329; www.vaccineunit.org.

Threshold At The Community Place, 145 Parsells Ave., third floor, 585-454-7530. Provides confidential HIV, STD testing and General Health Care, ages 12-25. Sliding fee scale, no one denied, most insurances accepted. Mon., Wed., Fri. 9am-5pm; Tues., Thurs., 9am-7pm; Sat. 10am-2pm. www.ThresholdCenter.org Center for Health and Behavioral Training of Monroe County 853 Main St., Rochester 14611. Collaboration of Monroe County Health Department and U.R. Provides year-round training in prevention and management of STDs, HIV, TB and related issues, such as domestic violence and case management. (585)753-5382 v/tty.

Planned Parenthood of the Rochester/ Syracuse Region 114 University Ave., Rochester, NY 14605; Tollfree Helpline: 1 866 600-6886. Offers confidential HIV testing and information. When you make your appointment, be sure to ask about our sliding scale fees. No one is turned away for lack of ability to pay.

Rochester Area Task Force on AIDS A collection of agencies providing a multiplicity of resources and services to the upstate New York community. Their offices are located through the Finger Lakes Health Systems Agency, which also provides medical literature and newspaper clippings, as well as demographic and statistical data for use in developing health care services. (585) 461-3520.

MOCHA Center of Rochester Our mission is to improve health and wellness in communities of color through intervention and service, with emphasis on LGBTQ programming. Youth drop-in center, HIV testing, peer education, support groups, computer lab, referral services and more. 107 Liberty Pole Way (corner of Pleasant). (585) 420-1400.

Monroe County Health Department at 855 W. Main St., offers testing and counseling for HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases. (585) 753-5481.

Strong Memorial Hospital provides a complete range of HIV medical care, including access to experimental treatment protocols, and HIV testing. Also provides individual and group psychotherapy. Training of health care professionals also available. Infectious Disease Clinic, (585) 275-0526. Department of Psychiatry, (585) 275-3379. AIDS Training Project, (585) 275-5693.

Planned Parenthood of Rochester and Genesee Valley Offers testing and information (585) 546 2595.

Rural HIV testing Anonymous and confidential, in Allegany, Livingston, Ontario, Schuyler, Seneca, Steuben, Wayne or Yates Counties, call 1 800 9625063.

Action Front Center (Action for a Better Community.) Provides HIV prevention education and case management services. Training and technical assistance to service providers. Resource library open to

public. All services free and confidential. Multicultural and bilingual staff. 33 Chestnut St., second floor. Hours 8:30-5pm, Monday-Friday.

262-4330; fax 262-4572. Free anonymous HIV testing on walk-in basis, Tuesdays, Wednesdays 1-4pm, provided through NYSDOH. Thursdays 1-4pm at Aenon Baptist Church, 175 Genesee St. Anthony L. Jordan Health Center Prevention & Primary Care Program Provides Medical Case Management, Mental Health, Primary Care, HIV Counseling and Testing using the Orasure Rapid Test, Education presentations, and access to other Jordan services. Prevention & Primary Care is a walk-in program; no appointments necessary. Office hours: Mon.– Fri., 8:30am– 5 pm: extended hours on Monday until 8pm. (585) 423-2879; fax (585) 423-2876. Website: www.jordanhealth.org. For more information, call Program Director Patrick M. Trevor, (585) 423-2879.

CDC National STD and AIDS Hotline 1-800-CDC-INFO (800-232-4636) 24 hours a day. TTY service: 1-888-232-6348. E-mail address: cdcinfo@cdc.gov.

Fair Housing Enforcement Project of Monroe County 585-325-2500; 1-800-669-9777. Deals with housing discrimination on basis of race, orientation, HIV status, etc.

Public Interest Law Office of Rochester 80 St. Paul St., Suite 701. Free legal services to HIV positive persons, families. Spanish bilingual advocates available. All civil cases except divorce; no criminal cases. Ask to speak to someone in PILOR. 454-4060.

Evergreen Health Services, Buffalo Primary care, HIV and family care, HIV testing and counseling. (716) 847-0328 Westside Health Services Brown Square Health Center, 175 Lyell Ave. (254-6480); Woodward health Center, 480 Genesee St. (436-3040). HIV/AIDS services, support, more.

McCree McCuller Wellness Center at Unity Health’s Connection Clinic (585) 368-3200, 89 Genesee St., Bishop Kearney Bldg., 3rd floor. Full range of services, regardless of ability to pay. Caring, confidential and convenient.

Catholic Charities AIDS Services A multicultural and bi-lingual staff providing services to a diversity of people infected and affected with HIV. Coordinates HOPWA (Housing Opportunities for People with AIDS) short term emergency assistance with rent/mortgage/utility payments and limited subsidized housing. 1945 E. Ridge Rd., Suite 24, Rochester NY 14622. (585) 339-9800.

Huther Doyle 360 East Ave., Rochester 14604. Offers drug, alcohol prevention, education, treatment. Risk Reduction Plus Team offers services to HIV positive and those at risk through substance use. Programs include outreach, transitional case management, free cconfidential testing (OraQuick Rapid Testing). NYS Dep’t. of Health offers free on-site confidential and anonymous testing. (585)325-5100, M-F 8am-9pm, www. hutherdoyle.com.

Geneva Community Health 601 W. Washington St., Geneva. Provides HIV testing, HIV specialty and primary care for residents of Ontario and surrounding counties.

Mon.-Thurs. 9am-5pm; Fridays 9am-noon.

315-781-8448.

lgbt health

For a list of LGBT-friendly and competent health and human service providers in the Rochester and Finger Lakes area, visit the resource directory page(s) at www.everybodysgood.com.

Gay Alliance of the Genesee Valley See www.gayalliance.org Resource Directory under “Health” for Gay Alliance referrals to physicians and service agencies.

TRANSGENDER

Rochester Trans Group Social/educational group for gender variant people and friends. Last Saturday, 3-5pm, GAGV Youth Center, first floor, 875 E. Main St. 244-8640.

Trans Action Group (TAG) Peter Vaillancourt, sk8forether@gmail; list serve transactiongroup@googlegroups.com Youth Trans Group First Thurs. 6-7pm GAGV Youth Center, ages 13-23. jessc@gayalliance.org; 244-8640, x 13

Genesee Valley Gender Variants Thurs. 7-9pm, Equal Grounds, 750 South Ave. GVGenderVariants@yahoogroups.com Transgender online: Transenough.com; www.endtransdiscrimination.org; genderfork.com; www.transgendercare.com; International Foundation for Gender Education Gender Education and Advocacy http://www.gender.org/; FTM Information Network http://www.ftminfo.net/; Transgender at Work http://www.tgender.net; PFLAG Transgender Network http://community.pflag.org/ page.aspx?pid=380; TransActive http://www. transactiveonline.org; The Transitional Male http://www.thetransitionalmale.com/; National Center for Transgender Equality http://transequality.org/; New York Association for Gender Rights Advocacy http://www.nyagra.com/; Transgender Aging Network http://forge-forward.org/aging/; Transgender Law Center http://transgenderlawcenter.org; Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund http://transgenderlegal.org/; The Self Made Men http:// theselfmademen.webs.com/ (please send us your favorite sites/groups) Guys Night Out Social group for transmen. Third Saturdays, 1pm, Equal Grounds, 750 South Ave. tguysnightout@gmail.com Spectrum LGBTIQ & Straight Alliance RIT/NTID student group. <SpectrumComment@groups.facebook.com

Women

Highland Hospital Breast Imaging Center 500 Red Creek Drive, Rochester 14623; 585487-3300. Specializing in breast health, diagnostic breast imaging and treatment and mammography outreach and education.

Breast Cancer Coalition of Rochester 840 University Ave.; 585-473-8177; www. bccr.org; email: info@bccr.org. Breast Cancer Coalition provides support services that include programs designed to help those coping with a recent breast cancer diagnosis and those coping with an advanced breast cancer diagnosis, such as the Advanced Breast Cancer Support Group to support women living with metastatic breast cancer. The Breast Cancer Coalition also provides information about breast cancer, a lending library, and a monthly educational program. All BCCR programs and support services are free.

Monroe County Women’s Health Partnership 111 Westfall Rd., Rochester NY 14692; (585) 274-6978. Comprehensive breast cancer screening services for uninsured and underinsured women.

Elizabeth Wende Breast Clinic 170 Sawgrass Drive. 442-8432. Dr. Wende Logan-Young and an all-woman staff provide mammograms.

Self Help for Women with Breast or Ovarian Cancer (SHARE) 1-866-53SHARE or 1-866-537-4273.

Alternatives for Battered Women 232-7353; TTY 232-1741. Shelter (women only), counseling. Lesbians, gay men welcome.

GAGV Anti Violence Project 585-244-8640 ext 17. For women and men.

Victim Resource Center of Wayne County Newark N.Y. Hotline 800-456-1172; office (315)331-1171; fax (315)331-1189.

Mary Magdalene House Women’s outreach center for HIV positive women and women at risk. 291 Lyell Ave. Open Mon-Fri. 6:30-9:30pm 458-5728.

Planned Parenthood of the Rochester/ Syracuse Region 114 University Ave., Rochester, NY 14605; Tollfree Helpline: 1-866-600-6886. Planned Parenthood has led the way in providing high quality, affordable reproductive health care since 1916. All services are confidential. Accept most insurances; including Medicaid. You may qualify for low- to no-cost family planning services. When you make your appointment, ask about our sliding scale fees. No one turned away for lack of ability to pay.

FEBRUARY 2012 • number 453 • gay alliance of the genesee valley • the empty closet

Ongoing Calendar Monday

Rainbow SAGE Women’s Group Last Mondays, 11am-12:30 pm, GAGV Library, 1st floor next to Youth Center, 875 E. Main St. ebrophy@frontiernet.net Occupy Rochester M-F, 4-6 pm, at the Liberty Pole.

Born That Way Formerly 3rd Presbyterian LGBT Support Group. First, 3rd Mondays, 7:30-9:30pm, 34 Meigs St. Carol, 482-3832 or Kaara, 6547516.

Lilac Squares Gay Square Dance Group, Mondays, 7pm, 140 Alex Bar. To reserve space: 467-6456; bdaniels@frontiernet.net.

Free syphilis testing AIDS Care, 259 Monroe Ave., 5-8pm. 4422220.

Rochester Historical Bowling Society 7:15pm, Mondays. Clover Lanes, 2750 Monroe Ave. (Group is full.)

HIV Positive Men’s Support group Every Monday, 5pm, AIDS Care Center for Positive Living, 259 Monroe Ave. Gay Alliance Youth Drop-In Hours Mondays, Wednesdays, 2-6pm, Gay Alliance Youth Center, 875 E. Main St. Prince St. entrance, first floor. 244-8640, x 13.

Frontrunners/Frontwalkers Mondays, 6pm, George Eastman House parking lot. www.rochesterfrontrunners.org.

Steps Beyond Stems Crack Support Group, Mondays, 7-8pm, 289 Monroe Ave. Gay Alliance Library & Archives, David Bohnett Cyber Center Every Monday. 6-8pm. First floor, 875 E. Main St. 244-8640.

Equality Rochester 2nd Mondays, 7-8:30 pm, Equal=Grounds.

426-0862; annetischer1@gmail.com

Tuesday

Just Us Guys Gay men of all ages. 2nd Tuesdays, 6:30pm, AIDS Care, 259 Monroe Ave. 223-2629 Charlie’s Group 2nd Tuesdays. Monthly peer-facilitated support group for married men who have sex with men.

Confidential, free. For time, place: email: charlie@gayalliance.org.

CampusOut Coffee Night First Tuesdays, 7-10pm, Equal=Grounds, 750 South Ave. MOCHA Youth Drop-In Tues.-Fri., 1-9pm, MOCHA Center, 107 Liberty Pole Way, 420-1400; 244-8640 MOCHA Hepatitis Clinic Free Hepatitis A & B vaccinations, third Tuesdays, 5:30-7pm, 107 Liberty Pole Way, 4201400 Women’s Community Chorus Rehearsals each Tuesday, 6:30-9pm, Downtown United Pres. Church, 121 N. Fitzhugh Street. 234-4441, www.therwcc.org Free HIV Testing 9am-7pm. AIDS Care, 259 Monroe Ave.

Wednesday Country Line Dancing/Two Stepping Every Wednesday, 140 Alex, 7pm. Lessons followed by dancing until 10pm, Beginners to advanced.

U.R. Pride Network 7:30pm, Gamble Room in Rush Rhees Library. urpride@gmail.com Rainbow SAGE Ruby Slippers Wednesdays, 5:45 pm, Callan-Harris Physical Therapy, 1328 Universty Ave. Gay Alliance Board of Directors Meets Third Wednesdays, 6pm, 875 E. Main St. 244-8640

New Freedom New Happiness AA Gay meeting, 7pm, Unitarian Church, 220 Winton Rd. Men and women. Open.

Support Group for Parents who have lost Children First, 3rd Wednesdays, 11am-12:30pm, Third Presbyterian Church, 4 Meigs St. Genesee Region Home Care. Free. 325-1880 COAP Come Out and Play. Wednesday game nights.

8-11 pm. Equal=Grounds, 750 South Ave. 7pm, paulkaseman@gmail.com.

Rochester Rams General Meeting 2nd Wednesdays, 7:30pm, Bachelor Forum, 670 University Ave. www.rochesterrams.com Brothers Keeper Support group for men over 30. Third Wednesdays, 5:30-7:30pm, MOCHA Center, 107 Liberty Pole Way. 420-1400 HIV+ Mixed Men’s Group Wednesdays, 11:30 am-12:30 pm.

AIDS Care, 259 Monroe Ave. Gay Alliance Youth Drop-In Hours Mondays, Wednesdays, 3-7pm, Gay Alliance Youth Center, 875 E. Main St. Prince St. entrance, first floor. 244-8640 x 13.

Frontrunners/Frontwalkers 6pm, Eastman House parking lot. www.rochesterfrontrunners.org.

Gay Alliance Library & Archives, David Bohnett Cyber Center Every Wednesday. 6-8pm. First floor, 875 E. Main St. 244-8640.

Empire Bears Every Wednesday. 6pm dinner at The Wintonaire. www.empirebears.com

Thursday

Presbyterians for Lesbian and Gay Concerns 6:30pm, first Thursday. Ralph, 271-7649 Queer Radical Reading Group First and third Thursdays, 7pm, Equal=Grounds, 750 South Ave. Pride at Work First Thursdays, 5:30pm. 167 Flanders St. off Thurston Rd. 426-0862.

Trans Action Group (TAG) Information: Peter Vaillancourt, sk8forether@ gmail; list serve at transactiongroup@googlegroups.com GLOB&L (Gays & Lesbians of Bausch & Lomb).

Meets every third Thursday in Area 67 conference room at the Optic Center. Voice mail: 338-8977 Rochester Gay Men’s Chorus Downtown United Presbyterian Church, 121 N. Fitzhugh St. 6:30-9pm, 423-0650 Free confidential walk-in HIV testing Every Thursday night, 5-8pm, AIDS Care, 259 Monroe Ave. 442-2220 MOCHA/Gay Alliance Youth Trans Group First Thursdays, 5-7pm, Gay Alliance Youth Center, 875 E. Main St., 1st floor (Prince St. entrance). 244-8640 ext 13.

Second Thursdays Social/business networking, 5:30-7:30pm.

Changing venues. E-mail: fingerlakes@outandequal.org

FRIDAY

Gay Men's AA meeting Fridays, 7:30-8:30pm, Closed meeting.

Emmanuel Baptist Church, 815 Park Ave. GLBTQI Motorcycle Group Second Fridays, 5:30pm, Various locations.

RochesterGLBTIQbikers@yahoo.com; 4676456; bmdaniels@frontiernet.net.

SATURDAY

Rochester Rams Bar Night Third Saturdays, 8pm-2am, Bachelor Forum, 670 University Ave. 271-6930 Rochester Trans Group

Social/educational group for gender-variant people, friends. Last Saturdays, 3-5 pm, GAGV Youth Center, first floor, 875 E. Main St. Frontrunners/Frontwalkers 9am, George Eastman House parking lot.www. rochesterfrontrunners.org.

Empire Bears Potluck 2nd Saturdays, Gay Alliance Youth Center, 875 E. Main, first floor, Prince St. entrance. 6:30pm greet; 7pm dinner. Bring dish to pass. www. empirebears.org.

Cross Dresser Support Group First Saturdays, 6-9pm, call for location: 251-2132; RCDNET@hotmail.com Guys Night Out Third Saturdays. Social group for transguys.

1pm, Equal=Grounds, 750 South Ave. tguysnightout@gmail.com.

Saturday Night Special Gay AA 7pm, Unitarian Church, 220 Winton Rd., S. Men and women. Open meeting.

Lilac Rainbow Alliance for the Deaf (LRAD) 2nd Saturdays, 6-9pm. rcoaster@rochester. rr.com Sophia’s Supper Club First and third Saturdays. http://www.inspiritual.biz/online-spiritual-evolution-gro/

Sunday

Parents Families & Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) Third Sundays, 1-3 pm. Open Arms MCC, 740 Marshall Rd. 244-8640 ext 27; PFLAG@gayalliance.org.

Gay Alliance Library & Archives, David Bohnett Cyber Center Every Sunday. 6-8pm. First floor, 875 E. Main St. 244-8640.

Come Out Dancin’ First, Third Sundays. 3-5pm, Friends Meetinghouse, 84 Scio St., entry on Charlotte St. $5.

Rochester General Assembly Sundays, Flying Squirrel Community Center, 285 Clarissa St. Unity Fellowship Church Sundays, 1:30 pm, Lutheran Church of Peace, 125 Caroline St., 14620. 520-6188.

Dignity-Integrity 1st Sunday: 5pm Episcopal Eucharist with music; 2nd Sunday: 5pm Roman Catholic Liturgy of the Word with music; 3rd Sunday: 5pm Episcopal Eucharist (quiet); 4th Sunday: 5pm Prayers to start the week, followed by potluck supper.

Open Arms Metropolitan Community Church 740 Marshall Rd., Chili, 10:30am, 271-8478 Gay Men’s Alcoholics Anonymous St. Luke’s/St. Simon Cyrene Church, 17 S. Fitzhugh St. 8:30pm, 232-6720, Weekly.

Closed meeting Rainbow SAGE First Sundays: Euchre Club, 3-6pm. Third Sundays, Potluck at First Universalist Church, 150 S. Clinton Ave., 4pm.

Men’s Cooking Group Third or fourth Sundays, 355-7664.

Civil Rights Front Every Tuesday, 5pm, Equal=Grounds, 750 South Ave. http://www.civilrightsfront.wordpress.com

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Rochester AA/NA Meetings Every week there are four regularly scheduled GLBTI AA and two NA meetings in Rochester.

Tuesdays

Narcotics Anonymous 6-7:30pm. AIDS and Recovery 1124 Culver Road (Covenant United Methodist Church) This is an NA meeting that is open to all addicts who have a desire to stop using. Although it is not specifically a gay-oriented meeting, it is welcoming to people of all sexual orientations and gender identities, as well as to anyone who is affected by HIV and AIDS.

Wednesdays

New Freedom/New Happiness Group 7pm. First Unitarian Church, 220 S. Winton Rd. Bus riders: Take the last #18 University bus to 12 Corners. Use the stop just past the top of the hill at Hillside Ave. and before Highland Ave. Or take the #1 Park Ave. to the corner of East and Winton, then walk five minutes south (uphill) on Winton. This is an open discussion meeting. All issues – as they relate to our alcoholism/addiction and recovery – are fair game.

Fridays Gay Men’s 7:30pm. Immanuel Baptist Church, 815 Park Ave. • Closed meeting, restricted to alcoholics and addicts • Men’s meeting • Handicapped accessible This is a round-robin discussion meeting. If you are shy about meeting people or speaking up in a group, you will find this meeting particularly warm and inviting because everyone gets their turn to speak (or pass). As a result, this meeting often runs long, so plan on more than the usual hour.

Saturdays Saturday Night Special 7pm. First Unitarian Church, 220 S. Winton Rd. Bus riders: The #18 University Ave. bus does not go by the church on weekend evenings.

Take the #1 Park Ave. bus to the corner of East and Winton, then walk five minutes south (uphill) on Winton.

• Open meeting, all are welcome, “straight friendly” • Mixed men and women • Handicapped accessible, take elevator to basement Meeting begins with a speaker, followed by open discussion.

Sundays Step in the Right Direction 7:30-9pm. 1275 Spencerport Road (Trinity Alliance Church) This is an NA meeting that is open to all addicts who have a desire to stop using. Although it is not specifically a gay-oriented meeting, it is welcoming to people of all sexual orientations and gender identities. Each week features a reading from NA literature, followed by discussion.

Rochester Gay Men 8pm. St. Luke/St. Simon’s Episcopal Church, 17 S. Fitzhugh Street. Bus riders use the Fitzhugh Street stop on Main Street at the County Office Building and walk south one block.

• Closed meeting, restricted to alcoholics and addicts • Men’s meeting • NOT handicapped accessible Meeting begins with a speaker, followed by open discussion.

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the empty closet • the gay alliance of the genesee valley • number 453 • FEBRUARY 2012

February WEDNESDAY 1

Classifieds WEDNESDAY 15

Imbolc, Candlemas. Ancient Celtic festival of light. Sacred tree: Rowan.

Through Feb. 2.

Empty Closet deadline for March issue. 244-9030; susanj@gayalliance. org.

Winter Games and Sports at Ganondagan. 10am-4pm. Snowsnake throw, dogsled team, snowshoes for hiking winter trails. Crafts, video, traditional Seneca story telling, hot food. Ganondagan State Historic Site, Rte. 444 and County Rd., just outside Victor. Free; donation of $5 requested. 924-5848.

Equality Rochester (as part of the Marriage Equality New York network) introduces Brian Silva, new Executive Director of Marriage Equality USA, at the Marriage Equality USA Kickoff Party 6:30-8pm, Downtown United Presbyterian Church, 121 Fitzhugh St. All are welcome.

SATURDAY 4

SUNDAY 5

Dignity Integrity. Episcopal Mass/ Healing Service, with music. 5pm, St. Luke’s/St. Simon’s Church, 17 S. Fitzhugh St.

WEDNESDAY 8

Out for Justice: “Fair Housing.”

6:30pm, GAGV Youth Center, first floor, 875 E. Main St. Laurie Lambrix, attorney from Monroe County Legal Assistance Center, will talk about discrimination in renting and home-buying, tenants’ rights and other issues. Free. 244-8640 ext 19.

THURSDAY 9

Out & Equal Second Thursdays Networking Event, 5:30-7:30pm, at Images Lounge of the Marriott Airport, 1890 Ridge Road West located near I-390.

Event is free with cash bar and complimentary hors d’oeuvres. 50/50 Raffle to benefit GAGV and Pride 2012. RSVP at www.oeNYfingerlakes.groupsite.com.

SATURDAY 11

Free mammograms for uninsured women over 40. 8am-12pm. Highland Breast Imaging Center, 500 Red Creek Drive, Suite 130, 14623. Call Breast Imaging Center at 585-487-3300 for appointment. Women who cannot make the screening day can be scheduled for a different day.

The Red Ball. 7-11pm, Cathedral Hall at Auditorium Center, 875 E. Main St., hosted by Gay Alliance. Tickets $10 in advance, $15 at door. Online at www.GayAlliance.org, also available at Equal=Grounds, Outlandish. Ticket includes light refreshments, desserts.

Music, beer/wine cash bar, gift basket raffle. Free parking.

SUNDAY 12

Dignity Integrity. Roman Catholic Liturgy of the Word, with music. 5pm, St. Luke’s/St. Simon’s Church, 17 S. Fitzhugh St. Queen of Hearts 2012-2013 Pageant, One Restaurant & Lounge, 1 Ryan Alley, near East Ave. & Alexander St. 21 and over only; $10 admission. 6-11pm.

THURSDAY 16

SATURDAY 18

Butch Femme Connection. Dinner at Jay’s Diner, Route 15 (West Henrietta Road), 7pm. 585-288-7208; email DressyFemme@aol.com or Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/bfconnection Dignity Integrity Cabin Party Potluck and Game Night. 4:30-9:30pm at local town park. Further details: website http://www.di-rochester.org/ or DI Hotline at 585-234-5092.

SUNDAY 19

Dignity Integrity. Quiet Episcopal Mass in the Chapel. 5pm, St. Luke’s/St. Simon’s Church, 17 S. Fitzhugh St.

TUESDAY 21

Mardi Gras Out & Equal ERG Leadership Roundtable. 5-6:30pm, hosted by University of Rochester, River Campus. Join regional Employee Resource Group leaders to share best practices, gather ideas for programming. For RSVP, directions to conference room at the university, contact Ralph Carter, 585-265-5904 or ralph. carter@xerox.com. More information at www.oeNYfingerlakes.groupsite.com.

Rev. Jimmy Creech gives Spring Christian Faith and LGBT Experience lecture at Ithaca Auditorium, Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School, 1100 S. Goodman St., 7-9pm.

THURSDAY 23

ImageOut kick-off screening for 2012. Loose Cannons,” 6:30pm at The Cinema, S. Clinton and Goodman. $8.

SUNDAY 26

Dignity Integrity. Evening Prayer, followed by a Potluck Supper. 5pm, St. Luke’s/ St. Simon’s Church, 17 S. Fitzhugh St. Michael Beattie, Fioritura in concert, 4pm, Downtown United Presbyterian Church, 121 S. Fitzhugh St. $25; Seniors $20; Students $10. 703-3990.

Classified ads are $5 for the first 30 words; each additional 10 words is another $1. We do not bill for classifieds, so please send or bring ad and payment to: The Empty Closet, 875 E. Main Street, Suite 500, Rochester, NY 14605. Paying by check: checks must be made out to Gay Alliance or GAGV. The deadline is the 15th of the month, for the following month’s issue. We cannot accept ads over the phone. Pay when you place your ad. We will accept only ads accompanied by name and phone number. Neither will be published, but we must be able to confirm placement. The Empty Closet is not responsible for financial loss or physical injury that may result from any contact with an advertiser. Advertisers must use their own box number, voice mail, e-mail or personal address/phone number.

PERSONALS

Politically progressive Lesbian Women Seniors interested in RPO concerts, Erie Canal walks, bird watching; news and current affairs conversation, call C at 585-732-7149.

SERVICES

Rochester’s Best Man to Man Rubdown. Give the gift of relaxation to your friend or partner! Unwind with this degreed, employed, fit, friendly, healthy, Italian GWM. Middle aged, 5’8”, 165 lbs., 32” waist, nonsmoker, d & d free, HIV negative. My 10-plus years experience guarantees your relaxation and satisfaction. Hotel visit, in call in my home or out call in your residence. Reasonable

rates. Discretion appreciated and practiced. Don’t delay, call me today at 585773-2410 (cell) or 585-235-6688 (home) or e-mail me at: magichands@rochester. rr.com.

Martin Ippolito master electrician.

Electrical work, telephone jacks, cable TV, burglar alarm systems, paddle fans.

585-266-6337.

World renowned weddings. 42 years performing same sex commitments, now marriages (it’s about time!). Nancy BB Meyer minister, God is Love-Animals are Angels ministry. 585-733-6213.

Man to Man. Offering a relaxing body-rub by a masculine bodybuilder, age 38. $80. Text/call 585-295-3055.

SELL ADS...

MAKE

MONEY The Gay Alliance is seeking a reliable, energetic self-starter to sell Empty Closet advertising for a generous commission. For more information, phone Susan Jordan at 244-9030 or e-mail: susanj@gayalliance.org

FEBRUARY 2012 • number 453 • gay alliance of the genesee valley • the empty closet

Bed & Breakfast

PFLAG meets the 3rd Sunday of each month. Meetings are at Open Arms Metropolitan Community Church, 740 Marshall Road, Rochester 14624 from 1 to 3pm.

Join us!

Questions? Call: 585-244-8640 and leave a message, or e-mail: pflag@gayalliance.org

Need to Talk?

I work with individuals and couples on a variety of issues including anxiety, depression, relationship concerns, sexuality & coming out.

Maryellen Meleca, LCSW • 14 years experience 585-905-4589 • maryellen.meleca@gmail.com

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the empty closet • the gay alliance of the genesee valley • number 453 • FEBRUARY 2012