Northern's Gay-Straight Alliance Association

Unfortunately, the writer, Caleb Hannon, and Grantland's team of editors did not see the lack of empathy that the piece had for the trans* community, nor how harmful it really was. These awful incidents happen all too often, change is needed and hopefully this article creates more visibility regarding the consequences of people who are disrespectful towards trans* people and for the trans* community as a whole. I hope that one day nothing terrible like this will ever happen again and that everyone can work together to learn about, accept and respect trans* people, who live hard enough lives as it is. 

This article made me consider what the people around me know about trans* issues, what people in my life, especially people much older than me, think about trans* issues. I know that my parents are unfamiliar with these issues as they had grown up with incredible amounts of stigma around trans* people and I don't think that they know any trans* people in real life. I've decided that I'm going to talk to them about them and tell them what I know about the trans* community and help spread awareness of this community full of people who don't deserve to be discriminated against and who are incredibly misunderstood by people in our society. We all need to cooperate together if we are going to help the world along with this change. 

I'll leave you with one more editorial post written for Grantland by a trans* woman, Christina Karhl that covers what the original article about Dr. V got wrong: http://grantland.com/features/what-grantland-got-wrong/ 

Still take this story as it is. There are many people who have written posts slamming Hannon, what he did was wrong, it was ignorant, and he used the information he found without any consideration for whom it belonged to. I'm not in a bashing mood today. I see this article as a reminder for everyone to do the right thing. So, I hope you all will work hard too, to educate yourselves, stop people when they're saying or doing something wrong, and help educate and enlighten others around you.

Thanks everyone,

One of the headlines was distinctly different. It is an article by the Christian Post published on Wednesday, a bit after the other news outlets had covered the story. Here's a link to this article, give it a look:  http://www.christianpost.com/news/transgender-man-taunts-christian-la-councilman-for-opposing-sexual-orientation-ordinance-quotes-from-the-bible-brings-him-stone-to-cast-113181/  In the Christian Post's perspective of the story, Pamela Raintree is wrongly portrayed as a transgender man, and male pronouns are used throughout the article. It also describes her protest as taunting the poor councilman instead of challenging him or standing up for her rights like how other articles had described the event. There was one thing that was unique to this article though and that was a quote from the councilman saying that he wasn't going to give up on his repeal and planned to continue his efforts to repeal this law later on, when he was better prepared. The comments at the bottom were rather insightful too, illustrating the perspectives of those in agreement and disagreement with this particular article. 

This article and it's injustices made me consider how foolish it is to get all your information from one source and only from like-minded people. For the people who only read the Christian Post article, they are exposed only to the negativity surrounding what Ms. Raintree did, the taunting of the councilman (especially her using the bible to do so), the article emphasizing the fact that she, "was born a man but identifies as a woman", all the male pronouns used, and the title calling her a "transgender man", as if she were some cross-dressing man with some abominable anti-christian agenda. Pamela is not being viewed as a human being fighting for a law that protects her rights, a law that without it she could lose her job at a moments notice, or her house, or her life. With that being said, if I had only read the liberal articles displaying Pamela's boldness and how had she put the councilman in his place, I would not have found out that the councilman still intended to try and repeal the law. I would not have found out that the councilman was not going to give up, or his true thoughts about homosexuals when he said, "I don't socialize with them. I don't think, you know, that we should." 

I could have dismissed this Christian Post article without reading it, as it appeared to be hateful, disrespectful, and highly ignorant (not that it wasn't). The article offered me information that the other, positive sources didn't given me. The mainstream liberal media sources saw it as a victory for Streveport, but even though the law was not repealed, the ignorance is still there. If the liberal sources had interviewed the councilman (it is possible he would not speak to them, though not one source mentioned any effort to get a comment from him), they may have found that he was still in it for the fight. This is why it's important to listen to others, even if we strongly believe they are wrong, because there is always something to be learnt from everyone. 

For the LGBTQ+ movement, it's not going to help if we only interact with each other, if we only get our information off of the liberal, pro-LGBT news sources, and if someone simply disagrees with us we shouldn't write them off as ignorant and stupid. We must listen to others to educate them, to learn why they think the things they do, and try and make them see differently, without getting mad at them and blaming them for their own ignorance. When ignorance is the problem, education is the solution. Pamela Raintree's brave, dramatic actions were an enormous success in catching the media's attention which helps spread awareness of trans* rights and aids in the education process.

Of course I did generalization the situation, not all Christian people view the LGBTQ+ community with such a closed mind, and not everyone who is anti-LGBT is Christian. They could be anyone, a mother, a grandfather, a teacher, even a friend. For the many people who do think that way, they need to get a new perspective of the LGBT rights movement, they need to see it in a different, positive light, but this will be hard to achieve if we scrutinize them for their ignorance and get angry at them for their intolerance. Though this is a frustrating battle, it needs to be understood that when people are out looking for things to fuel their hatred, prejudices, and ignorance we need to instead show them tolerance, patience and the means to teach them acceptance.

Anyway those were just a few of my thoughts. Please feel free to comment, write an ask or bring it up at a GSA meeting. I would absolutely love to continue this conversation and hear what other people think about the topic.

And yeah, thanks,

Pick one of these up before the Bell Let's Talk National Kick-Off Day Breakfast that Northern will be hosting this coming Tuesday, January 28 at 7 am to 8:30 am. All associations are invited to the breakfast that morning so we want everyone to show up, and it would be awesome if everyone showed up in one of these t-shirts!

These shirts are also great for showing your support of the GSA, especially on the day of pink, during our GSA run pride week, on April 9th, 2014. The day of pink is where we strive to raise awareness of those who are bullied and discriminated against for being different. Bullying towards LGBTQ+ kids and teens, is happening all over the world, where something as simple as wearing a pink t-shirt is condemned and used as an excuse for bullying and harassment. That is why the day of pink is important, to raise awareness for discrimination, homophobia, transphobia and bullying in general. 

Anyway, if you want a shirt, pick one up, they're only $15 and they help us out a lot!

Thanks!

Vivian, Cole, and Natalie