Tuesday Thought #2

Texas Is The New ... Hateful ... North Carolina

The surest sign that Texas lawmakers are complete idiots? The fact that they watched what happened when North Carolina passed its own anti-transgender Bathroom Bill and then still thought it worth a shot to pass one of their own.

The good news is that if this turns out anything like North Carolina, the GOP will get their asses kicked come election time.

Yup, deep in the heart of hate, er, Texas, the Senate State Affairs Committee voted 8-1 to approve a bill to restrict transgender rights. Senate Bill 3 would require people to use the bathroom associated with the sex on their birth certificate in all government buildings and schools; it would also ban local governments and schools from passing their own rules to allow transgender people to use the bathroom associated with their actual gender.

Making matters worse, the process for updating one’s birth certificate is difficult in Texas, and it is estimated that most Trans persons in the state do not have an updated birth certificate. But what do lawmakers care? Hate rules!

The bill will now go to the full senate for a vote, where it is expected to easily pass, though it could, could, face opposition in the house, though, where Republican speaker—yes, Republican speaker—Joe Straus has said:

“I don’t want the suicide of a single Texan on my hands.”

The bill’s author, Republican senator ... because, of course ... Lois Kolkhorst, opened the hearing, saying:

“We’re here today because Texas has a tradition of taking care of these issues and not being dictated to by the federal government.”

In case you missed it, by “these issues” she means Civil Rights.

Her Hate Speech was followed by ten hours of testimony followed, most from a coalition of LGBTQ activists, teachers groups, school administrators, and business leaders that oppose the bill. Those people mentioned the high suicide rate for transgender people as a reason to oppose further discrimination which caused Republican ... because, of course ... senator Craig Estes to actually say:

“I’m hearing that it’s somehow our fault that people are committing suicide. Another explanation could be that people are depressed.”

Perhaps people are distressed because they’re being treated as “less than”? Perhaps they’re depressed because they just want to pee. Estes went on to say that he is sure that “it would be depressing to be trying to figure out which gender you are” but that suicide can be caused by lots of things.

Um, asshat? Trans persons are not “trying to figure out which gender” they are; they already know. It’s the bigots and haters in the schools, statehouse, and churches who can’t seem to grasp what being Trans means.

And, as happened in North Carolina, logic will most likely lose out to hate and hysteria and lies, but sanity may be restored with the loss of revenue.

Several business leaders testified that, like North Carolina, Texas’s major cities could lose millions of dollars if this law is passed. Dallas Convention & Visitors Bureau’s CEO Phillip Jones says that city has already lost $40 million because of this bill and could lose another $1 billion in bookings if the bill passes.

And then IBM stepped into the fight, sending an internal memo to employees around the world calling the bill discriminatory, and sending twenty executives to testify in the hearing about the bill.

Other companies coming out against the hate include Apple, Amazon, Google, Cisco, Facebook, and Dallas-based companies like American Airlines, Southwest Airlines, At&T, and Texas Instruments who sent in their own testimony:

“Our companies are competing every day to bring the best and brightest talent to Dallas. To that end, we strongly support diversity and inclusion. This legislation threatens our ability to attract and retain the best talent in Texas, as well as the greatest sporting and cultural attractions in the world.”

But Texas Governor Greg Abbott, a bigoted asshat if there ever was one, refused to listen to reason, and, instead, played the “Protect The Women and Children” card just as Governor McCrory did in North Carolina; and, again, there has never been one single incident, anywhere, where a Trans person has assaulted a woman, or a child, in a restroom; again, they just want to pee.

So, Texas, carry on with the bigotry and intolerance and ignorance, you’ve been doing so for decades; and then cry foul when businesses move away, when conventions change their locations, when sports teams and sporting associations decide to hold their events elsewhere.

Money talks.

And that’s the cost of hate, in dollars, but the cost to human life, human dignity, civil rights, and just being decent, has no monetary value.

LGBTQNation

The Atlantic

Another One: Gabriel Taye

Gabriel Taye was just eight-years-old; he was just using the bathroom at his school, Carson Elementary, near Cincinnati, when he, according to the school, fainted.

Several minutes later, assistant principal Jeff McKenzie found Gabe unconscious on the floor and took him to the school nurse, who called Gabe’s mother, Cornelia Reynolds, to say Gabe had fainted and asked her to come pick him up.

At home, when Gabe began to vomit, Reynolds took him to the hospital. He stayed home from school for a day, but returned to Carson the following day; after school that day, he came home and hanged himself using his necktie.

After Gabe’s suicide, Cincinnati homicide detective Eric Karaguleff began to investigate and what he saw on a school surveillance video horrified him enough to write to the principal and assistant principal at Carson Elementary, and to Child Protective Services, saying he was alarmed at what took place:

“I saw some concerning events, and I don’t even have a child at that school.”

In the video, Karaguleff saw a young boy with “with dyed hair sorta O’Dell Beckham Jr. style,” enter the restroom; instantly several other kids ran out, but the boy with the dyed hair stopped one kid and punched him so hard in the stomach that the boy fell down on all fours.

“I witnessed behavior that in my belief is bullying and could even rise to the level of criminal assault.”

A few minutes later, Gabe entered the restroom and appeared to try and shake the hand of the boy with the dyed hair, perhaps in an attempt to get him to stop bullying the child on the floor.

But the bully slammed Gabe so hard against the wall that he fell unconscious to the floor, which is when, according to Karaguleff, the bully seemed to “celebrate and rejoice in his behavior” as Gabe lay motionless.

Several other young boys came into the restroom and took turns kicking Gabe, still unconscious, while other boys just step over his body like he was garbage. Others stop and stare at Gabe, poking him; this goes on for about five minutes until an adult enters the bathroom. Then at least three other adults come in and look at Gabe; some kneel down to get closer to him.

Eventually, Gabe is able to stand up and leave with one adult, assistant principal Jeff McKenzie.

According to the boy’s family lawyer, Jennifer Branch, the school told Cornelia Reynolds that her son had fainted; there was no mention of the attack in the bathroom. But school officials maintain that the nurse told Reynolds to take Gabe to the hospital, though she says they never mentioned it.

 “If the school had told her what had happened to him in the bathroom, that he was unconscious for such a long period of time, she would have taken him to the hospital immediately, reported that to the medical professionals, and she would have the called police.”—Jennifer Branch

And now, the Cincinnati Public Schools superintendent has announced that, after an investigation by the district, no linkage had been found between Gabriel’s death and bullying.

No link; what about the video? What about him being slammed against a wall? What about him being kicked and poked while he lay unconscious on the ground?

Well, the district maintains that the jerky quality of the video makes it hard to tell exactly what happened in that bathroom, but 8-year-olds don’t kill themselves for no reason.

And now, because of Detective Karaguleff’s investigation, Hamilton County Coroner Lakshmi Sammarco is reopening the investigation. When she first learned of Taye's death she was shocked that an 8-year-old would commit suicide and, at first, asked for his death to be investigated as a homicide. But the autopsy report concluded that Taye died from asphyxiation and the manner of death was, in fact, suicide.

"It was very hard for me to believe that an 8-year-old would even know what it means to commit suicide and so I asked Cincinnati police to treat this as a homicide until proven otherwise and investigate it fully."— Lakshmi Sammarco

I’m not exactly sure what’s going on here; a police detective sees a video with a boy, with dyed hair, beating up at least two other boys, one of whom falls unconscious to the floor, and yet the school district says the video evidence is inconclusive?

And why does an eight-year-old boy kill himself for apparently no reason? I mean, if Gabe wasn’t beaten in that bathroom, and if he wasn’t bullied at school upon his return, why take his own life?

The school, and the district need to be held accountable; if only for the fact that Gabe Taye—if there was no beating by the boy with the dyed hair, and how easy must it be to find that kid—collapsed, either from a beating or from a sudden fainting spell, in a bathroom, and several other boys kicked him while he was down.

Part of the school’s job is to protect these kids while they are in their care, and this school didn’t do that; they apparently looked the other way. And with this video evidence it just seems like the school is as responsible as those boys in Gabe Taye’s death.

He was just an eight-year-old kid using a bathroom.

CNN

The Root

Crime Online

On This Date In ISBL History: ... And Again ... Brandon Bitner

As I am in Oregon helping my Dad recuperate from knee surgery, I thought I’d do something I’ll call “On This Date In ISBL History” and repost some things from back when the blog was new, and newish … this was originally published November 9, 2010:

Brandon Bitner was tortured at school because he was different. He was what many call "emo" and he wore his hair dark and in his eyes; he wore the requisite dark clothes. He played the violin. His bullies assumed he was gay. 

Maybe he was, maybe he wasn't. Maybe he was just a different kid in dark clothes who loved to play the violin. 
Now he's dead. 

Brandon Bitner left a suicide note in his house, then walked 13 miles down a darkened highway until finally deciding to run in front of a tractor-trailer. 

I can only begin to imagine what went through his mind on that long walk in the middle of the night. Was he thinking, hoping, wishing, and praying that it would get better? 

Earlier in the week, at Midd-West High School, where Brandon Bitner was a freshman, there was an anti-bullying assembly. It wasn't held in response to any specific incident, but because the principal felt it was an issue that should be addressed. 

Most students at school recall the assembly being treated as a joke. Bullying is fun for warped little minds with low self-esteem and too much time on their hands. 

But, and this is where I get even more angry, many of Brandon Bitner's friends knew he was being bullied because of his perceived sexual orientation, the way he dressed, his love of the violin. And they spoke out against the bullying … after Brandon Bitner ran in front of that truck. I would have hoped they'd spoken up before Brandon Bitner died.

We all need to speak up.

If we are friends with someone who is being taunted and tortured by classmates, by strangers, by their family, it is our duty to speak up.

If we see it happening on the street we need to speak up.

If it's happening to us we need to speak up. 

See, bullies live in the darkness and bully from the shadows, but with voices we can shine a light on them and they'll scamper away like rats. 

We need to speak up. Before another Brandon Bitner talks a walk in the middle of the night and never comes home.

There really is no update as Brandon is still dead … as are the other young people in the other forty-plus posts on this blog who killed themselves because they were bullied.

We don’t hear about it as much as we did in years past but it’s still happening.

Speak.Up.

Listen ... Children Are Killing Themselves

I remember being in junior high, though I don’t remember it fondly. Those are the years when most kids are discovering their sexuality, and it was when I began to realize I was more interested in the football players than the cheerleaders. And other students started to realize that about me, too. And so, as happens, I was bullied as being the sissy in class … until the words queer and gay were thrown at me.

I remember sitting in an English class and the teacher asking a question; I knew the answer and raised my hand but before I could even speak I heard …

“Faggot.”

… behind me. And then the laughter; and then the teacher ignoring the remark and asking her question again, probably hoping I wouldn’t raise my hand.

And I never did again; for a long time I kept quiet, kept my hand down when a question was asked, because I didn’t want to hear that word in class, and didn’t want to see my teachers act like it hadn’t been said.

I still endured the shoves in the hallway and the taunts in P.E., but I knew, instinctively, that there was no one I could tell, because they would all just look away like that English teacher.

It took a while for me to find myself, and to find a group of friends that, while they might have known I was “different,” didn’t care; and it was then that I was able to speak up in class, in life, and to not care about the words hurled at me.

Daniel Fitzpatrick didn’t have that luxury.

After being taunted for being the fat kid, the sensitive kid, and maybe the not-so-smart kid, after complaining to teachers and school officials, after seeing that nothing was ever going to change for him at the Holy Angels Catholic Academy in Staten Island, Daniel, just thirteen, hanged  himself … because no one would listen.

But just before he took his own life, Daniel penned a letter — a letter never sent — to the teachers and administrators at Holy Angels, asking why they ignored him, and why they let it happen:

The letter was written after the school returned the Fitzpatrick’s $100 re-registration fee for Daniel, saying the boy should repeat the seventh grade … at another school.

“I gave up. The teachers… they didn’t do anything.”

Daniel’s family is now speaking out about Holy Angels, its principal, Rosemarie McGoldrick, and the teachers, who did nothing to help Daniel. Maureen Fitzpatrick, Daniel’s mother, says her son tried to tell his other teachers, but that he was afraid of them; he felt like the whole school knew what was going on and was “laughing behind his back.”

“My son shouldn’t have to die to be heard. There’s something wrong with the adults in authority positions when kids can’t go to them for help. No parent is supposed to bury their child.”

Daniel wrote in his letter that he had been tormented by a group of five boys:

“They did it constantly. I ended up fighting (one boy) and got a fractured pinkie.”

The Fitzpatrick’s say the boys targeted Daniel in gym class and threw balls at him; no gym teacher stopped that from happening, and one teacher even went so far as to call Daniel “lazy” in front of the class. He was getting it from all sides; where was he supposed to turn?

Kristen, the youngest of Daniel’s three older sisters, also attended Holy Angels, and said that specific teacher was known for humiliating students by holding up tests and papers to publicly humiliate those who did poorly, because nothing makes a child work harder than public shaming.

“If one person didn’t like you, no one liked you. Danny was always left out. He used to come up to me and ask me to get kids to play with him. The other kids would say they thought he was weird.”

And how else might he feel? Daniel Fitzpatrick Daniel’s father, says Principal McGoldrick tried to push his son out of the school on multiple occasions before recommending that Daniel repeat the 7th grade somewhere else.

But Mr. Fitzpatrick said the bullying his son endured at the school with no one listening, was the cause of his falling grades. It’s vicious cycle; the child his bullied, his grades fail, his teachers humiliate him, his friends bully him, he asks for help, the answer is to remove him from the school.

The Brooklyn-Queens Diocese, which oversees the school, would not discuss any bullying complaints raised by Daniel, but did release a statement concerning his death:

“In light of this tragedy we are reexamining all bullying prevention policies and training. The principal, teachers, and staff of Holy Angels Catholic Academy are heartbroken over the loss of Danny Fitzpatrick. We take the issue of bullying very seriously and address every incident that is brought to our attention.”

Wait; now, after this child, who apparently begged for help, took his own life rather than suffer one more day being bullied by classmates and ignored by teachers, now they are reexamining their policies?

And they won’t discuss the complaints Daniel raised? Well, that certainly makes it appear that they knew of his complaints, knew about the problem, and decided the best course would be to send the victim to another school.

Or, have the family investigated; the Fitzpatrick’s say that Holy Angels had social workers investigate them. Daniel’s parents voluntarily submitted to substance abuse testing; they passed.

The school failed. They let this child die; they are as much a bully as every single student who ever taunted Daniel Fitzpatrick, or any other student.

“My son is not supposed to be dead. My son is supposed to be playing football. My son is supposed to be home with his family.” — Maureen Fitzpatrick

And so now, wanting to hold the school responsible for ignoring Daniel, the Fitzpatrick’s are sharing their son’s letter.

“Mom I want them to know what they did to me and how I feel. I want them to hear my story.” — Daniel Fitzpatrick

But the school isn’t talking; Principal Rosemarie McGoldrick is silent. The teachers — save one — cannot be bothered to even say Daniel’s name. That teacher — the only one Daniel called the only one to help him — was Alexa d’Alora, an English and religious studies teacher, and Daniel’s homeroom teacher, who could only utter a few words:

“Please. Please. This is hard.”

Harder still for a child who was never heard; a child who will never be heard … except … maybe Daniel’s letter will be his voice; perhaps teachers and administrators at Holy Angel will finally listen, and understand, that name-calling, from students or teachers, is unacceptable; and maybe other teachers, at other schools, who see this sort of ‘boys will be boys’ bullying in their classrooms will put an end to it before one of their students takes his or her own life.

I’m hoping that someone, anyone, will finally listen to Daniel Fitzpatrick and do something about this epidemic of bullying before we lose more Daniel’s. Who knows what that boy might have been had he been given the chance.

That could have been me; I don’t know why it wasn’t, but it could have been me. Perhaps I had something that kept me from believing there was no hope, and perhaps Daniel didn’t; or maybe those who targeted him were far more vile and violent than those who taunted me.

But I can’t help but think … there but for the grace of God …

Listen.  Children are killing themselves.

Latest

NY Daily News

ISBL Asshat of the Week: Mormon Church Elder Dallin Oaks

Last year the Mormon Church handed down a new judgment on LGBT Mormons, basically calling them worthless, labeling those in legal same-sex marriages as “apostates” —  dissenters, defectors, deserters, traitors — of the Church and calling the children of Gay Mormons unworthy of baptism in the faith unless they renounce their gay parents.

It was a Hate-fest.

Sadly, shortly after this new proclamation there was a rash of suicides among LGBT Mormons, the blame for which the group Mama Dragons laid squarely at the feet of the church.

The Mormon Church maintains that the Mama Dragons' assertion about the 32 LGBT youth suicides is not verifiable and has been questioned by Utah state health officials, but LGBT-affirming Mormon therapist Hollie Hancock says that if even Mormon has taken his or her own life because of this new policy then "we've lost too many."  

And last week, Mormon Church Elder Dallin Oaks also addressed the suicide crisis by saying it had nothing to do with the Mormon’s new hate policies, and that only God can judge him on judgment day.

And She will, you know; She will.

Now, the Church itself has not commented on Elder Oaks’ statements, which he made after a speech on the importance of religious freedom, but here’s more of where Elder Oaks stands on the issue of LGBT Mormons.

One audience member, Andrew Evans, talked about his friend, a Gay Mormon, who killed himself last year:

"You’ve gone on record that the church does not give apologies. Does religious freedom absolve you from responsibility in the gay Mormon suicide crisis?” 

Oaks replied:

"I can't answer that beyond what's already been said. ... I will be accountable to higher authority for that. That’s the way I look on that. Nobody is sadder about a case like that than I am."

Seriously? No one is sadder about the suicide of a young gay Mormon than the Church Elder who is upholding the belief, perpetuating the belief, that gay is less than, that gay people be renounced for their sexual orientation; that gay people be shunned and excommunicated if they decide to live an openly gay life.

He’s kind of right, though, in one sense of the word, because I cannot think of anyone sadder, more pathetic, more hateful, more able to use religion to perpetuate hate, than Dallin Oaks.

And God will judge him for that.

NCRM

Is Suicide Among LGBT Mormon's On The Rise After Their New Hate Policy Was Unveiled?

Last year the Mormon Church announced a whole new set of rules against The Gays, calling it a revelation from God that families shun their gay brothers and sisters, and sons and daughters, labels people in same-sex marriages “apostates,” and bars their children from being baptized until they’re 18 and disavow their parents’ relationships.

Yes, that’s a loving God, right?

And in that spirit of love — that’s sarcasm if you weren’t sure — a group of Mormon parents with LGBT children called Mama Dragons has reported that 33 church members ages 14-20 have committed suicide since that hateful policy was unveiled last November.

Now, Utah state health officials dispute Mama Dragons’ suicide tally, and even assuming it’s accurate, there is no way to verify that any or all of the deaths were linked to the anti-LGBT church policy, but when you are an LGBT member of a church that tells you you’re evil, treats you badly, and demands that your family and even your children shun you, the impact is immense.

Now, even before the new Hate Rules were announced, Utah had the fourth-highest rate of suicide in the country, and suicide was the Number One cause of death for children ages 10-17 in Utah. But even those numbers might be low because the families of LGBT Mormons typically don’t publicize their suicides to avoid the associated shame from fellow church members.

But … but … oddly enough, the Mormon Church has acknowledged the LGBT youth suicides:

“Every soul is precious to God and to the church and the loss of life to suicide is heartbreaking. Those who are attracted to others of the same sex face particular challenges and pressures in this regard, both inside and outside the church. We mourn with their families and friends when they feel life no longer offers hope.” — church spokesman Dale Jones

Excuse my French, but “Fuck you” comes to mind.

“Every soul is precious to God and to the church.”

But we will shun you, excommunicate you, and tell your families to disown you because you’re gay.

Keep your faith, wallow in it, but I wish I believed as you do so I could see your faces when you arrived in whatever Promised Land you think you’re headed to, and your version of “God” looks you in the eye, calls you a hater, and slams the door in your face.

Again, pardon my French, but “Fuck you.”

A Modicum Of Justice For Sandra Bland ... Though It's Not Enough

Y’all remember Sandra Bland? The black woman stopped for a traffic violation and then was arrested and was later found hanged in her jail cell? And, of course, nothing happened with that case; no arrests for the police; no questions about her treatment in jail; no reason why she would have killed herself.

Well, this week Waller County grand jurors have indicted Department of Public Safety [DPS] trooper Brian Encinia on a single charge of perjury because they believe he lied about his actions during the arrest of Sandra Bland.

The charge against Encinia stems from his own statement at the time of Bland’s arrest on July 10 about why he felt the need to yank her out of the car and throw her to the ground.

In a dashcam video of the traffic stop, Encinia can be seen opening Bland’s driver’s side door and reaching in for her. When she refuses to come out and he threatens to use a Taser on her. 

But in his written report Encinia simply says:

“I had Bland exit the vehicle to further conduct a safe traffic investigation.”

The Bland family attorney, Cannon Lambert, says his clients don’t understand why it took six months to reach the indictment, though I have three reasons:

She was Black.

This was a white police officer.

It happened in Texas.

As a result of the indictment — the only one issued by the grand jury in the Bland case — a warrant was issued for Encinia’s arrest. If convicted, Brian Encinia could face up to a year in jail and a $4,000 fine. In addition to the indictment, Brian Encinia has been fired from DPS.

Lambert will now pursue the Texas Rangers report investigating Bland’s death. The report has been withheld from the public because of grand jury proceedings, but “that’s over now” and Lambert has plans to depose people involved in the Texas Rangers investigation to make their case.

Still, it’s a shame there was no real justice for Sandra Bland, but hopefully her family will find closure in knowing that Brian Encinia is a proven liar, may do jail time, face a substantial fine, and is out of job; and possibly, hopefully, he will never be able to carry a badge again.

For, without Brian Encinia’s overzealous and violent treatment of Sandra Bland, she might still be alive today.

And that’s a crime.

The Fifth Column News

Highway Adopted for Trans Teen Leelah Alcorn

In Warren County, Ohio, a stretch of Interstate 71 has been adopted for Leelah Alcorn, the transgender teen who took her own life on the Ohio highway last December.

Leelah died from blunt force trauma after stepping in front of a Freightliner semi-truck. Police investigators found her backpack, with her laptop inside, at the scene, and found searches for suicide prevention and runaway assistance in the computer’s search history.

There was no suicide note … that day. But a note did appear on Leelah’s Tumblr page after her death. In the note she talks of feeling like “a girl trapped in a boy’s body” since she was 4, but didn’t know it was possible for “a boy to become a girl” until 10 years later.

“When I was 14, I learned what transgender meant and cried of happiness. After 10 years of confusion I finally understood who I was. I immediately told my mom, and she reacted extremely negatively, telling me that it was a phase, that I would never truly be a girl, that God doesn’t make mistakes, that I am wrong. If you are reading this, parents, please don’t tell this to your kids. Even if you are Christian or are against transgender people don’t ever say that to someone, especially your kid. That won’t do anything but make them hate them self. That’s exactly what it did to me.”

Leelah Alcorn’s parents took her to see Christian therapists because she must be ill, right? And they refused her requests to aid her in transitioning because of that “illness.” She then told them she was gay, and they reacted by removing her from school, taking away her phone and computer, and isolating her in her room for months because she was “sick.”

And then she killed herself because she saw few choices possible in her future:

“Either I live the rest of my life as a lonely man who wishes he were a woman or I live my life as a lonelier woman who hates herself. There’s no winning. There’s no way out. I’m sad enough already, I don’t need my life to get any worse. People say “it gets better” but that isn’t true in my case. It gets worse. Each day I get worse.”

A group of her friends adopted the highway in her memory through an online campaign begun in August.

“We are keeping her memory alive by adopting and maintaining the stretch of highway where she lost her life, in hopes of bringing to light the issues faced by transgender people and so that these tragedies can be brought to an end.”

I had mixed feelings when I heard about this; I thought that renaming a stretch of roadway where she had taken her life seemed a little callous. No one renames a gun or a rope or a knife or a bottle of pills after the person who committed suicide.

But then I got to thinking … as people drive that road and see those signs with Leelah’s name on them, they might read it and forget it; or, they might read it and remember, and go home and find out about Leelah, who she was and why she died.

And maybe one of those people is another young person feeling different and not knowing why; another young person who might now understand who they are and why they are, and rather than feel alone, rather than feel like they have no choice, decide they can be themselves and they will be themselves.

Maybe Leelah’s name on a road sign will save just one life, and that’s more than enough to make it worthwhile.

Towleroad