[Jennifer_SFBA]

May 25, 2006

GOVERNOR SAYS HE WILL VETO BILL PROTECTING STUDENTS AND FOSTERING TOLERANCE IN SCHOOLS

Veto Announcement Appears to be Politically Motivated, Says Equality California

Sacramento, CA– As reported in the Sacramento Bee earlier today, Governor Schwarzenegger has announced that he will veto Senate Bill 1437, a bill authored by Senator Sheila Kuehl (D-Santa Monica) and sponsored by Equality California (EQCA) to add sexual orientation and gender identity to existing state curriculum anti-bias rules

SB 1437 The Bias Free Curriculum Act would amend two sections of law that presently require the inclusion into the curriculum of the role and contributions of traditionally underrepresented groups and prohibit adoption of teaching materials that reflect negatively on such groups. The bill would simply add lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people to these existing categories that enhance teaching materials while ultimately leaving educators free to design their own particular courses of study.

The Sacramento Bee reported that the Governor’s staff said that the Governor supports inclusive curriculum but does not want to micromanage educators.

“The Governor must not understand what this bill does and what it does not do. This is a simple non-discrimination bill that merely adds LGBT people to a long existing list of other groups,” said Geoffrey Kors, executive director of Equality California, in response. “We will not let up one iota in our efforts to advance this legislation which addresses a serious problem in our schools – invisibility and lack of safety for all students but particularly LGBT students and children of LGBT parents. We will request a meeting with the Governor and ask him to reconsider his position and work with us to ensure inclusive and bias-free curriculum.”

Governor Schwarzenegger vetoed two LGBT-related bills prior to his ill-fated special election last year, including AB 849 (Leno, D-San Francisco), which would have allowed same-sex couples to marry in California, and AB 866 (Yee, D-San Francisco), which would have simply added sexual orientation and gender to the lengthy list of groups protected by a voluntary fair campaign pledge.

“The Governor ran for office pledging to support equality for LGBT Californians. He broke that promise twice last year and has now pledged to break it again,” Kors noted.

The Governor’s announcement comes twelve days before the California primary and coincides with a recent visit to the state by Vice President Dick Cheney to drum up right wing support for Republican legislators up for re-election and Republican candidates for Congress.

“The timing of this announcement either signals confusion about what the bill does or is a calculated political move whereby the Governor is putting politics above people,” said Kors. “Whatever the case, the Governor is on his way to a third strike when it comes to opportunities to stand up for the LGBT community.”

“This unprecedented announcement of a veto of a bill not even yet on his desk is a cowardly election-related move made on the backs of our kids and school safety,” said Senator Kuehl the bill’s author. “We will keep working to show the Governor a veto would be a mistake.”

[Jennifer_SFBA]

Excerpt: The ex-gay movement considers same-sex attraction to be a gender-identity disorder, brought on by inadequate parenting, unmet emotional needs and, often, childhood sexual abuse.
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'Ex-Gays' Seek a Say in Schools

In response to campus programs supporting homosexuality, critics call for offering an alternative view: that people can go straight.


By Stephanie Simon
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
May 28, 2006

http://www.latimes.com/news/education/la-na-exgay28may28,1,2810142.story?coll=la-news-learning

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. - Over the last decade, gay-rights activists have pushed programs to support gay and lesbian students in public schools. Their success is striking:

More than 3,000 Gay-Straight Alliance clubs meet across the country.
Nearly half a million students take a vow of silence one day each spring in an annual event to support gay rights. California may soon require textbooks to feature the contributions of gays and lesbians throughout history.

Critics, mostly on the religious right, view all this as promoting the "homosexual lifestyle." Unable to stop it, they have turned to a new strategy: demanding equal time for their view in public schools and on college campuses.

Conservative Christians and Jews have teamed up with men and women who call themselves "ex-gay" to lobby - and even sue - for the right to tell teenagers that they can "heal" themselves of unwanted same-sex attractions.

They argue that schools have an obligation to balance gay-pride themes with the message that gay and lesbian students can go straight through "reparative therapy." In this view, homosexuality is not a fixed or inborn trait but a symptom of emotional distress - a disorder that can be cured.

Alan Chambers, a leading ex-gay activist, recalls how scared and depressed he felt when a high-school counselor advised him to deal with his attraction to other boys by accepting his homosexuality. He had no choice, she told him: He was gay. "It was very damaging,"
Chambers said. "I didn't want that. I hadn't chosen it."

His senior year, Chambers found his way to Exodus International, a network of groups that support ex-gays. He is now married to a woman, a father of two - and the president of Exodus.

Mental-health professionals overwhelmingly warn against therapy to change sexual orientation, calling it ineffective and potentially harmful to patients' self-esteem. But ex-gays say they have managed to eliminate or reduce their pull to the same sex, though it often takes years of struggle.

"That's an important perspective," Chambers said. "If you're going to allow one side into the schools, you need to allow the other side, too. People want alternatives."

That rhetoric echoes the creationist campaigns of the 1980s and '90s: Just as conservative Christians demanded equal time for Genesis whenever Darwin got a mention, ex-gays and their allies are insisting on equal time for their views whenever homosexuality is discussed. Several ex-gay websites offer equal-time policies that parents can urge their local school boards to adopt.

Teachers, too, are beginning to raise the subject with their principals and in the classroom. "It's been our hottest issue over the last two years. Without a doubt," said Finn Laursen, executive director of the Christian Educators Assn. International, which represents 7,000 teachers, mostly from public schools.

Though the equal-time argument didn't work for creationists, ex-gays have begun to notch some successes.

A high school in New Hampshire invited ex-gay activist Aaron Shorey to present his story on Civil Rights Day last year. He told several standing-room-only classes that he refused to let his attraction to men define him as gay. "I have experienced change," he told them.
"Change is possible." He's working with several other New England schools to get permission for similar presentations.

The ex-gay group Inqueery, based in Des Moines, has also sent speakers to public high schools, including one in Chicago this spring.

In Boulder, Colo., educators are considering including an ex-gay pamphlet in a resource guide to help teachers handle questions about sexuality. The pamphlet states that sexual identity is fluid and that conversion therapy can help some gays and lesbians overcome depression. The district - in one of the most liberal cities in the country - does not endorse that philosophy, but "we're a big believer in providing all viewpoints," spokeswoman Maela Moore said.
"It would be negligent to omit."

[Jennifer_SFBA]

The ex-gay movement's biggest victory came last year, when a federal judge sided with Parents and Friends of ExGays and Gays, or PFOX, in a lawsuit against a Maryland school district.

PFOX, a national advocacy group based in Alexandria, Va., had sued to block the district's new sex-education curriculum, arguing that its treatment of homosexuality was one-sided. The judge agreed that students should hear other perspectives, and PFOX took a seat on the committee charged with drafting new lesson plans.

Similar lawsuits may be filed soon. New Jersey-based JONAH - Jews Offering New Alternatives to Homosexuality - is seeking parents and students willing to sue to get the ex-gay view into schools. So is Liberty Counsel, a Christian law firm in Orlando, Fla. The firm joined PFOX last month in urging teens to form Gay to Straight Clubs and hang "Choose to Change" posters in their schools. If an administrator tries to censor that message, Liberty Counsel promises to provide legal backup.

Already this spring, the firm has threatened to take a Wisconsin high school to court for inviting a gay speaker - but not an ex-gay
- to Diversity Day. (The school responded by canceling the program.) Liberty Counsel is also weighing action against colleges in Ohio and Connecticut after students said they were barred from putting ex-gay literature in the campus gay and lesbian centers.

The ex-gay movement considers same-sex attraction to be a gender-identity disorder, brought on by inadequate parenting, unmet emotional needs and, often, childhood sexual abuse.

Mainstream associations of psychiatrists and psychologists resoundingly reject that model, but the ex-gay movement promotes it through groups such as the National Assn. for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality. That group's president, psychologist Joseph Nicolosi, opened a recent conference for men and women seeking to overcome homosexuality with a ringing statement:

"There is no such thing as a homosexual. We are all heterosexual.
Our body was designed for the opposite sex."

The audience of more than 700 sat rapt in the pews of a Fort Lauderdale church. Some held Bibles. Others took notes. Nicolosi went on to tell them that fathers could help their sons stay straight by bonding through rough-and-tumble games, such as tossing them in the air.

"Even if [the dad] drops the kid and he cracks his head, at least he'll be heterosexual," Nicolosi said, chuckling. "A small price to pay."

Critics say such comments reflect a deep homophobia and can devastate men and women trying to come to terms with their sexual orientation.

"There's a fine line between saying 'Change is possible, and I have changed' and saying 'Change is possible, and you better change because something's wrong with you,' " said Eliza Byard, deputy executive director of the nonprofit Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network.

Protesting the ex-gay conference in Florida, Jerry Stephenson said his three years in conversion therapy plunged him into despair and self-loathing. He could not break his attraction to men; ashamed of his weakness, he contemplated suicide. Today, Stephenson counsels others on accepting their homosexuality.

The idea of promoting conversion therapy in schools frightens him:
"Let's save the children from this," Stephenson said. "All it does is bring oppression."

Even the most ardent champions of ex-gay therapy acknowledge that it's not always possible to banish unwanted attractions. Nicolosi says only one-third of his patients are ever "cured" - and even then, "that doesn't mean they never have a homosexual thought or feeling again."

Embarrassing lapses have plagued the ex-gay movement: In the 1970s, two of the men who founded Exodus fell in love and left their wives to live together. In the 1980s, the founder of Homosexuals Anonymous was caught having sex with men who sought his help going straight.
In 2000, a leading ex-gay speaker with Focus on the Family was photographed leaving a gay bar.

When Dr. Robert Spitzer, a psychiatrist at Columbia University, interviewed 200 people who had sought to change their sexual orientation, he concluded that many of them had succeeded and were happier for it. But many of his subjects for the 2001 study had been referred by - or worked for - ex-gay groups, and Spitzer relied entirely on their self-reporting of thoughts and desires. He now says that some of his subjects may have been deceiving themselves or lying to him.

"If some people can change - and I think they can - it's a pretty rare phenomenon," said Spitzer, a strong supporter of gay rights.

Promoting conversion therapy in schools, he added, may be giving teens "false hope."

Ex-gay activists, however, take heart from guidelines developed this spring to help educators around the country deal with clashing views on homosexuality.

Drafted by an unlikely coalition of gay activists and conservative Christians, the guidelines call for schools to open a respectful dialogue with all parties.

That doesn't necessarily mean all views deserve a place in the curriculum, said Charles Haynes, a 1st Amendment scholar who mediated the process. Educators must decide which perspectives are scientifically valid and which lessons will help their students grow.

But Haynes is adamant that the ex-gay community at least deserves a hearing.

"I can see where it might be offensive to some to say that ex-gays, or any other group with controversial views, should get a place at the table," he said. "But that's America. That's who we are, on our best days."


Copyright 2006 Los Angeles Times

[Jennifer_SFBA]

The following is a very strong and moving letter written by the mother of a gay boy in Vermont...
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"Many letters have been sent to the Valley News concerning the homosexual menace in Vermont. I am the mother of a gay son and I've taken enough from you good people. I'm tired of your foolish rhetoric about the "homosexual agenda" and your allegations that accepting homosexuality is the same thing as advocating sex with children. You are cruel and ignorant. You have been robbing me of the joys of motherhood ever since my children were tiny.

My firstborn son started suffering at the hands of the moral little thugs from your moral, upright families from the time he was in the first grade. He was physically and verbally abused from first grade straight through high school because he was perceived to be gay.

He never professed to be gay or had any association with anything gay, but he had the misfortune not to walk or have gestures like the other boys. He was called "fag" incessantly, starting when he was 6.

In high school, while your children were doing what kids that age should be doing, mine labored over a suicide note, drafting and redrafting it to be sure his family knew how much he loved them. My sobbing 17-year-old tore the heart out of me as he choked out that he just couldn't bear to continue living any longer, that he didn't want to be gay and that he couldn't face a life without dignity.

You have the audacity to talk about protecting families and children from the homosexual menace, while you yourselves tear apart families and drive children to despair. I don't know why my son is gay, but I do know that God didn't put him, and millions like him, on this Earth to give you someone to abuse. God gave you brains so that you could think, and it's about time you started doing that.

At the core of all your misguided beliefs is the belief that this could never happen to you, that there is some kind of subculture out there that people have chosen to join. The fact is that if it can happen to my family, it can happen to yours, and you won't get to choose. Whether it is genetic or whether something occurs during a critical time of fetal development, I don't know. I can only tell you with an absolute certainty that it is inborn.

If you want to tout your own morality, you'd best come up with something more substantive than your heterosexuality. You did nothing to earn it; it was given to you. If you disagree, I would be interested in hearing your story, because my own heterosexuality was a blessing I received with no effort whatsoever on my part. It is so woven into the very soul of me that nothing could ever change it. For those of you who reduce sexual orientation to a simple choice, a character issue, a bad habit or something that can be changed by a 10-step program, I'm puzzled. Are you saying that your own sexual orientation is nothing more than something you have chosen, that you could change it at will? If that's not the case, then why would you suggest that someone else can?

A popular theme in your letters is that Vermont has been infiltrated by outsiders. Both sides of my family have lived in Vermont for generations. I am heart and soul a Vermonter, so I'll thank you to stop saying that you are speaking for "true Vermonters."

You invoke the memory of the brave people who have fought on the battlefield for this great country, saying that they didn't give their lives so that the "homosexual agenda" could tear down the principles they died defending. My 83-year-old father fought in some of the most horrific battles of World War II, was wounded and awarded the Purple Heart.

He shakes his head in sadness at the life his grandson has had to live. He says he fought alongside homosexuals in those battles, that they did their part and bothered no one. One of his best friends in the service was gay, and he never knew it until the end, and when he did find out, it mattered not at all. That wasn't the measure of the man.

You religious folk just can't bear the thought that as my son emerges from the hell that was his childhood he might like to find a lifelong companion and have a measure of happiness. It offends your sensibilities
that he should request the right to visit that companion in the hospital, to make medical decisions for him or to benefit from tax laws governing inheritance.

How dare he? you say. These outrageous requests would threaten the very existence of your family, would undermine the sanctity of marriage. You use religion to abdicate your responsibility to be thinking human beings. There are vast numbers of religious people who find your attitudes repugnant. God is not for the privileged majority, and God knows my son has committed no sin.

The deep-thinking author of a letter to the April 12 Valley News who lectures about homosexual sin and tells us about "those of us who have been blessed with the benefits of a religious upbringing" asks: "What ever happened to the idea of striving . . . to be better human beings than we are?"

Indeed, sir, what ever happened to that?

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If you believe that homosexuals deserve the same rights as everyone else, repost this, and pray and thank God that there are people like this mother, cause without them, where would we be?

http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&...

[Jennifer_SFBA]

January 1, 2003


The Causes and Effects of Homophobia: You Can Make A Difference


by Steven Cozza

Homophobia is the fear and hatred of homosexuality, homosexuals and of people perceived to be homosexual. Homophobia exists everywhere and anyone can be homophobic: a priest, family member, doctor, teacher, friend, relative, Boy Scouts of America, celebrity, and even the President of the United States of America can be homophobic. No matter how much we want to ignore it, homophobia exists and it is affecting everyone, not just homosexuals. There are unique contributing factors that attribute to why people become homophobic even though it is difficult for me to understand, why human beings would choose to be so deliberately hateful towards a group of people.

Mental Health professionals feel that some men feel they need to be homophobic in order to prove their heterosexuality and masculinity to others. These people are seen bashing and hassling others they think are gay or lesbian as a way of showing they aren't gay themselves. Studies have shown that people with homophobic attitudes, often have same sex attractions themselves. People who start to notice that they are homosexual may go into denial and start to make homophobic remarks in order to hide their own sexual orientation. Homophobia affects some gay people and causes them to be in denial about their own sexuality or
forces them to mask their homosexuality for the fear of other homophobic people finding out they are homosexual. It is tragic to know that some people feel they have to deny their sexual orientation. The effects of hearing homophobic remarks and hatred towards homosexuals causes them to not like who they are and hide it by sometimes trying to live a heterosexual lifestyle.

Certain groups in our society are influenced more than others into becoming homophobic. People who grow up with a religious background, (particularly religious fundamentalists and Mormons ), tend to be more bias towards homosexuals. Salt Lake City, Utah is one of the most homophobic places on this planet and that is because of the Mormon influence there. You cannot be openly homosexual and be in the Mormon Church. If they find out that you are gay, they will excommunicate you from their church and community. Many religious people not only fear and hate homosexuals, but they have intolerance to homosexuals. These people strongly believe that the Bible claims that being homosexual is a sin. It seems as though persons who grow up in areas with greater tolerance, tend to have positive attitudes towards homosexuals. If you are raised in an open-minded family, you will most likely be open-minded yourself and not homophobic. Youth tend to believe the same way their parents do, so if your parents are homophobic, most likely you will have the same values.

Studies show that people with more education are less likely to be homophobic. Ignorance is what breed's homophobia. People that are uneducated believe every homosexual stereotype out there, causing them to be homophobic. Some uneducated homophobic people believe that homosexuals are the ones who created HIV or that all homosexuals are child molesters; that it is a choice to be homosexual or gay people are feminine and all lesbians are masculine. If homophobic people were to just take the time to actually meet and get to know who homosexuals really are, they would learn that they are people just like everyone else. Many Americans were racist towards African Americans until other Americans protested and educated others. If people were to simply educate themselves there would be much less homophobia.

The AIDS pandemic was a crisis that contributed to more people being homophobic. Those living with AIDS during the AIDS pandemic, faced homophobia by being discriminated against. In America AIDS hit the homosexual community first. This caused homophobia to develop and those living with AIDS were rejected. Gay men were blamed for "causing" AIDS. Gay men, prior to AIDS, were mostly a hidden community. As a result to the AIDS pandemic many more people became homophobic, some gay men with AIDS were even murdered, family's that had children with HIV were run out of town and their homes were burned. The AIDS pandemic was definitely another reason why people became so homophobic. But there is also a flip side to AIDS and homophobia. As people who were not gay began to take care of those gays who had AIDS they began to see that gay men are just like anyone else. So while the first reaction to AIDS was to stir up hatred and homophobia as the pandemic continued and people began to know gay men as people the homophobia began to decrease in our society. So while AIDS brought out the worse in us as a people it also brought out the best in us as a people.

[Jennifer_SFBA]

The effects of homophobia on society can be deadly. Homophobia is a sheer killer and can cause lots of destruction towards homosexuals. Society's homophobic views of homosexuality leave many gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender youth feeling confused, ashamed, guilty, afraid and alone putting them at a greater risk for suicide, drugs and alcohol abuse, homelessness, and sexually transmitted diseases. Gay, Lesbian, bisexual and transgender teens are two to three times more likely to attempt
suicide than heterosexual youth because of homophobia. The leading cause of death for gay youth is suicide, which can be attributed to our homophobic, intolerant society. If a youth is kicked out of his or her home for being homosexual, many resort to suicide. Every time a homosexual hears a homophobic hate word, like faggot, they come that much closer to killing themselves. The Boy Scouts of America's policy discriminating against gays only encourages hatred towards gays and tells them that what they are is wrong. It is homophobia that causes homosexuals to commit suicide, not being gay. Homophobia escalates into hatred towards homosexual people.

Homosexuals are the most frequent victims of hate crimes in the United States. One such hate crime was against Matthew Shepherd who was a college student in Wyoming and was beaten to death by two young men because he was gay. Both of those boys were very homophobic and were both parts of homophobic organizations. One of the killers was an Eagle Scout and the other was a Mormon. Not to blame these organizations for Matthew Shepherd's death, but since they teach hatred by discriminating against homosexuals they definitely contributed. It all comes down to your surroundings. I cannot blame some people for being homophobic because of where they live and learn from. I was very fortunate to have two very open-minded parents who taught me that everyone was created for a reason and that we should all be treated equally no matter what our differences are. They taught me we as a people are like a rainbow, with many colors. It is that diversity that we should cherish.

No matter what the reasons are for people being homophobic, ignorance can only be an excuse for so long. Someday, I hope for the sake of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered people, that everyone will be loving and accepting of all the people in the rainbow. But that will never happen unless you speak out. Make a difference for human rights. We only have a short time on this earth to make a difference to help make the world a better place. Don't wait any longer. You can help make the rainbow become a reality in all of our lives.

[Jennifer_SFBA]

Suicide is almost always a desperate act by someone who feels helpless and hopeless. Suicidal feelings and thoughts are a frequent symptom of depression. As a society, we feel shocked and questioning when someone we know kills herself or himself. We feel that we want to do whatever we can to prevent another such tragedy.

It has been only relatively recently that there has been recognition that gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender youth (generally defined as ages 15-24) are at an increased risk of suicide compared to other youth. A growing body of research literature has provided the estimate that gays, lesbians, and bisexual youth attempt suicide at a rate 2-3 times higher than their heterosexual peers. Some studies indicate that the rate of attempted suicide for transgender youth is higher than 50%. These studies are not documenting only a recent phenomenon; some are retrospective studies, interviewing older members of these minority groups and finding higher rates for attempted suicide during these individuals' youth decades ago. It is only the attention to this problem that is recent.

Sexual and gender minority youth are at a higher risk of suicide largely because of societal and developmental factors. This age period is when all people face the developmental tasks of finding their identity and establishing sexual/emotional intimacy in relationships. Our society fosters, nurtures, and channels these tasks for heterosexual youth. Implicitly and explicitly, heterosexual youth have their feelings, identities, and relationships acknowledged and validated. In general, our society is a perilous wasteland for sexual and gender minority youth. It is a wasteland because the resources that might help them in the developmental tasks of finding identity and establishing intimacy are nonexistent in most places, scarce in others. It is perilous because there are real dangers to their emotional and physical well-being which they must try to navigate. Harassment, threats of violence, and physical/sexual assaults by peers and family are experienced by a significant number of sexual and gender minority youth. Even more ubiquitous are the slurs, insults, and jokes regarding this population which color their environment and make it a challenge for them to come to love themselves and have good self-esteem. Not all of them possess the internal and external resources nor the autonomy that come with greater age to help them through these struggles with their environment. Although many sexual and gender minority youth are resilient, internalized self-hatred and resulting pain for others contribute to a higher risk of abusing alcohol and other drugs as a means of numbing those feelings.

There are several things that can help reduce the suicide risk factors for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender youth. All of us can make a commitment to making the environment a safer place for them. Heterosexuals who read this can do a lot. Stop laughing at or ignoring the bigoted jokes and insults that are frequently made about sexual and gender minorities. Go a step further and confront those who make these remarks, telling them that you do not find them appropriate. Additionally, you can continue your own education about all sorts of people who are different than you, including sexual and gender minorities. Open your mind and your heart further. Communicate your caring to those around you. Support the struggles of this population to obtain the same basic civil rights you have, the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Older gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people who read this can remember how difficult our own experience was when young. Frequently we may want to put that behind us because of the painfulness of remembering it even still. We cannot afford to do that as too many of our youth are in those hells now. Commit or recommit yourself to being as out as you can be, being proud, and reaching out to the youth who need our support. Remember that our lives are only as good as they are because of those who came before us in this struggle. What will you do for those who come after us?

Sexual and gender minority youth who have felt or are feeling suicidal I ask not to give in to those helpless and hopeless feelings. I know from personal experience how it can seem that things will never get better, no one will accept you for who you are, and maybe you aren't sure you like you for who you are. As someone who made it through, I can say that the fears, when kept to yourself, are worse than the reality. Look around you and find some person that you feel you can trust to tell your feelings to, someone who has expressed a caring and accepting attitude. It might be a family member or friend. It might be a professor or hall director or RA or minister. If it feels too risky to speak to any of these people, contact the Counseling Center. We care and want to be a support to you. As someone who survived his own difficult gay adolescence, I want you to know that life gets better, so hold on to life and reach out for help.

Paul Cody, Ph.D.
U.N.H.Counseling Center

[Jennifer_SFBA]

I have extensively studied the areas of sexual orientation and gender identity that are related but separate components of "brain sex patterning" pattterned between the 6Th - 12Th week in utero (Milton Diamond, Ph.D., Pysiology, University of Hawaii and Gunter Dorner, East Germany in separate, non-collaberative studies, in animals for Diamond, and in human beings for Dorner behind the Iron Curtain during the cold war). One of the most important facts about sexual orientation and gender identity is that the population distribution for each of them conforms to the bell curve, and that, as in all normal bell curve distributions, 50% of the total population under study is within the middle of the bell representing 50% of the total population under study. In the case of sexual orientation in this model, bisexuals are that 50% who are represented in and toward the middle of the bell, strictly and only heterosexuals representing less than 10% of the total population are way out on the extreme right end of the bell; and strictly and only homosexuals representing less than 10% of the total population are way out on the left end of the bell with a very small percentage of the the total population having NO "brain sex patterning" for sexual orientation at all, and therefore blank for sexual orientation, and A-sexual. Then for gender identity (there is a separate brain sex center for gender identity, sexual orientation, basic (gender) patterning and sexual equipment patterning) I might describe that as the stereotypical Marylyn Monroe on the extreme left on the bell curve and the stereotypical Sylvester Stallone on the extreme right on the bell curve each comprising less than 10%of the total population for gender identity, with the remaining population finding themselves somewhere in-between Marylyn Monroe and Sylvester Stallone on the bell curve in a normal distribution. We need to celebrate our diversity as a people as each of of us has much to contribute to the whole of life. Without wonderful gay men, there would be a lot of bad hair out there, and I, for one, would suffer beause of it, Oiy Vey! The intellect of transgender people is a general strength they have, and on it goes. By people becoming unconcerned about labeling and identifying what people should be and instead learning who people really are, we will learn to embrace the world together as one people, a very geat thought, and my fervant hope for the future of humanity.

[Jennifer_SFBA]

http://www.hbo.com/docs/programs/middlesexes/index.html

Middle Sexes: Redefining He and She

Award-winning filmmaker Antony Thomas (HBO's Celibacy) explores the controversial subject of the blurring of genders, as well as the serious social and family problems faced by those whose gender may fall somewhere in between male and female.

[Wafflepudding]

*Bump*

I'm surprised this didn't foster some comment. This is hardly news anymore but nevertheless an interesting topic. I'm 100% in favor of promoting tolerance to other lifestyles and preferences in schools. I think if we had more programs like these we would have a more compassionate society. Even if only 8% of the whole generation would gain some tolerance and sensibility, it would be worth every penny.

[Jennifer_SFBA]

Thank you for your good thoughts about it, Wp. I worked on legislation is CA that the Republican Governor of CA, Arnold, vetoed that would have done just that.

[Wafflepudding]

So what was the toyminator's official excuse for pleasing his constituency?

[Jennifer_SFBA]

Arnold set up an 800 phone line to comment on that bill and another, I don't remember which one. I worked on alot of them and most he did sign. The Christian right got a phone-in campaign going and people were able to call only once from a telephone number. So, the Christian Right called from their office phone, their cell phone, their house phone and any other phone they could get their hands on. When we caught on to what they were doing, we did the same thing. Not a very good indicator of how many registered voters wanted our bill or didn't want it. Arnold played to the right on it saying he didn't want to restrict the schools. Of course, he also vetoed the gay marriage bill I worked on. He did sign the Gwen Araujo Bill I helped write, the intent of which was to eliminate the gay and transgender and transsexual panic defences. It ended up being amended, weakened to a jury instruction, and expressing the intent of the legislature, then was referred to the California Judicial Council for final writing.

http://www.courtinfo.ca.gov/jc/

[Wafflepudding]

So how is tolerance limiting public schools? It sounds to me like additional funding and programs enhance schools, they do not LIMIT them.

Ironically the christian far right has been trying to replace evolution with creationism/intelligent design in schools for decades and rarely is that said to limit our schools.

I believe this kind of special education should not confine itself to tolerance of alternative lifestyles, but promote tolerance and understanding in general. I think perhaps if we lived in a more compassionate society, it would even lower another great problem of our time: School shootings.

[Jennifer_SFBA]

Yes, wp, it would cool down violence. That was the point of the bill, and I was very proud of being on the committee who wrote it and decided the logistics for the good it would do people. It was just a simple list addition. The guy was pandering to the Christian Right AND to the Republican Party machine who wanted it NOT passed. Arnold was protecting people's "right" to religious bigotry and expressed hatred against the very people I was working to protect from that, and them. Anyone's right to belief ends at my nose.

[Wafflepudding]

This is not about right to belief or religious discrimination. Merely encouraging and promoting a secular value does not curtail the rights of the fundies to believe whatever they want to believe.

If they want to be hateful and discriminatory in their own homes and in their personal life, they can go right ahead, no amount of sensitivity training will force them into anything. But when they start harassing other students, persons and spreading their hatred in public property they infringe upon others rights.

Tolerance and compassion are values which do not conflict with religious teachings, or stem directly and solely from religion, thus we are not infringing upon their rights. They just had to come up with something more appealing than "We don't like it! that's why you can't do it!"

Nonetheless, although we disagree on the specific reasons, I believe we agree that the principle of it is correct, and that the right's actions here are deplorable.