Just Because A Campus Claims It's GLBT Friendly Doesn't Mean It Is

As transpeople continue to transition as early as age six, it means that some access issues and battles are now being fought out at the middle school, high school and college level.

A comprehensive survey of  LGBT students, faculty and staff at America’s colleges campuses was recently done and unveiled at at September 23 briefing hosted by the openly gay members of Congress on Capitol Hill.

What the survey does is blow up some myths about 'GLBT friendly' campuses.

The 2010 State of Higher Education for LGBT People reports on the experiences of nearly 6,000 students, faculty, staff and administrators in all 50 states. It shows significant harassment of students and a lack of safety and inclusiveness, even among those supposedly "welcoming" institutions.

And on the very day this survey was being unveiled, after a series of anti-gay incidents, students belonging to the University of Rhode Island's Gay Straight Alliance and GLBT Center staged a sit in to demand that the URI administration take immediate steps to protect LGBT students, employees and faculty on campus.

Here were the survey’s key findings:
• A quarter of respondents reported experiencing harassment. More than 80 percent of those said sexual orientation was the reason.
• Just under 40 percent of transgender respondents reported harassment and 87 percent of them blamed their gender identity or expression.
• A third of those surveyed have seriously considered leaving their institution because of the challenging climate.
• More than half said they hide their sexual or gender identity to avoid intimidation.
• More than a third reported they fear for their physical safety.

Not surprisingly, TBLG/SGL students and LBGT student of color felt even less safe because of the double whammy of racism and homophobia/transphobia.

Campus Pride's executive directer Shane Windemeyer noted in an interview with edge Boston that less than 600 colleges and universities have non discrimination policies hat include sexual orientation, and that number dwindles to less than 200 that have non discrimination policies that include gender identity and expression.

So this survey tells us that we have much work to do in order to make our college campuses safe and comfortable learning environments for GLBT students.

That needed to happen on HBCU campuses for LGBT/SGL students yesterday, but that's another post..

The reality is haters, TBLG people aren't going away or back into the closet.   Deal with the reality that we exist and the fact that TBLG students want the same things out of our college experience that you do. 

All we want is the ability to enjoy our college experience in as stress free a manner as possible, live our on campus lives without being harassed or assaulted and walk off the campus with our heads held high and a degree in hand.
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The Transteen Who Won't Be Homecoming King

In any election, the guiding principle of it is if you get the most votes, you win. 

That wasn't the case for a trans Mona Shores, MI high school senior.

Oak Reed is an honor student who decided to run for homecoming king and successfully campaigned on Facebook for it.  .

However, school administrators had other ideas

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Citing that Oak was enrolled as a female student, they invalidated all his votes garnered in the homecoming election.    Not only is his mother upset about it, so is the Mona Shores High School student body.

"He was voted for homecoming king and, according to the votes, he should have been homecoming king, and it's just sad, and it just breaks my heart that all these people all voted and it was taken away, it was completely taken away from him," said Oak's mother.in a WOOD-TV story.

Oak's fellow students are also not too happy with the administrative decision as well, and are making their feeling known not only inside the hallowed halls of Mona Shores High, but on a Facebook page entitled 'Oak Is My King'.

Oak is taking it in stride.  "It's the senior class that votes for their representative," Reed said. "What they did was taking away the voice of the senior class."

 Damn skippy..

Hope this situation resolves itself in your favor, and may the rest of your senior year be a great one.

Beyond Male And Female-The Biology Of Who We Are

There was an excellent diary posted on Daily Kos yesterday by Rei that goes into the nuts and bolts of gender identity, the biological makeup of males and females, and how that impacts transmen and transwomen 

Eddie Long..Another Hypocrite Bites The Dust

 
"God said, everybody in here that knows what's right but ain't practicing -- every woman that knows what to do but still wants to act like a 'woman of the 90s' that the world has described -- God says unto every man that knows what God is saying to do, and you're still acting like the boys on the corner, God says you deserve death!"     Bishop Eddie Long

I don't like megachurch ministers that preach the BS  'prosperity gospel',    Much of my distaste for it is rooted in my belief it has distracted them from fulfilling the Black Church's traditional role of speaking truth to power on behalf of the downtrodden and oppressed against the powerful.

Another of the trends that bothered me was starting in the late 80's early 90's observing many of these same large church pastors in cities across the nation suddenly started declaring themselves to be conservative Republicans.

One of the megachirch ministers I had a special distaste for was Eddie Long.in the ATL.   In addition to his 'hate on gays' preaching, he bragged about his close GOP ties.   I also haven't liked him ever since he cranked up that 2004 anti-marriage equality march that started at the foot of  Dr. King's grave. Seeing pictures of him hugging George W. Bush sent my disgust quotient to genius level..

 “We’re not just a church, we’re an international corporation,  We’re not just a bumbling bunch of preachers who can’t talk and all we’re doing is baptizing babies. I deal with the White House. I deal with Tony Blair. I deal with presidents around this world. I pastor a multimillion-dollar congregation.”

New Birth Missionary Baptist Church had such a negative anti-gay rep that Julian Bond refused to step inside its arena sized sanctuary in Lithonia, GA for the 2006 funeral of his best friend Coretta Scott King.

Now the clock's ticking on the start of this Sunday's highly anticipated service at New Birth to see not only what he's going to say with the unblinking eye of the nation upon him, but see if this homophobic hypocrite is going to step down from his position as senior pastor of the church..  .

And the Black GLBT/SGL community and our allies are gleefully watching every minute of his very public fall from grace.