These U.S. senators are not our real enemies, writes Fred Hochberg.
To win marriage equality, focus on local battles, not U.S. Sens. Clinton and Schumer, suggests Assembly member Daniel O’Donnell.
Boycotting Manhunt is reacting against
the intolerance of John McCain, whose politics and policies oppose gay equality.
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Friday, October 03, 2003
To the Editor:
This fall, three transgender teenagers have been brutally murdered. According
to staff with the Gender Education and Advocacy’s Remembering Our Dead
Project, the U.S. is averaging more than two trans murders every month, the highest
rate ever of trans victims.
It is important that our community understand what it means to live as a transgender
person; and to begin to break down the dangerous stereotypes, misinformation,
and assumptions which allow harassment, intimidation, and violence to occur.
The tragedies in San Francisco and in our nation’s capital, and the
senseless violence which occurs all across the U.S. every day, must serve as
a wake-up call for all of us. As a member of the media, I hope you will educate
yourself on these issues and then use your voice to help our community stand
up for the rights of all people.
Also, in some of the stories I’ve seen about trans people, reporters
failed to identify trans people by their chosen names or with pronouns which
reflect their trans identity. The AP Style Guide, the accepted standard in
news reporting, requires that people be identified by pronouns “consistent
with the way the individuals live publicly.”
I hope whenever you are reporting on trans people, you will respect this standard,
and more importantly, the lives of the trans people you are covering.
Upper East Side
To the Editor:
I think it is great that you are bringing attention to the crystal meth addiction,
and wanted to make sure you are aware of Crystal Meth Anonymous.
I believe it would be a disservice to not list this resource in coverage of
this subject. As you are probably aware, 12-step groups have had the highest
success rate in helping addicts recover, and for obvious reasons CMA is the
fastest growing.
To learn more, go to www.crystalmeth.org; www.nycma.org;
or to http://home.earthlink.net/~dccma/.
Via the Internet
Thanks for your articles on crystal meth. Having survived the coke, ecstasy
and ketamine years without developing an addiction, I mistakenly assumed the
same with meth.
At 41, I find myself dealing not only with a sex addiction, but now a budding
drug problem. Attempts to reduce usage (only weekends, etc.) have not been
entirely successful. Yes, I need help, but I’m not quite there yet. Your
articles however, scared me back to reality.
Midtown
To the Editor:
I’m a journalist, and I want the gay press to be as good as it can be.
So when I see something like this from your paper, it’s pretty damn shocking:
Re: “U.N. envoy dies in Baghdad” (Aug. 22): You wrote, “Rick
Hooper, 40, lived in Spanish Harlem, where he had moved three years ago with
his then-lover, photographer Robert Zash.”
His lover? It’s not 1973. “Lover” conveys illicit, temporary,
transitory, illegitimate. How about following New York Times style? The Times
would never use “lover.” Or there’s Rex Wockner, who wrote: “A
picture-perfect gay couple — dubbed ‘The Chippendales’ by
their competitors — won CBS TV’s ‘The Amazing Race.’”
Murray Hill
To the Editors:
I am strongly in favor of the Harvey Milk School’s expansion and inclusion
in the New York public schools (“Gay N.Y. high school debuts to protest,” Sept.
12).
Some opponents have argued that putting queer youth in an environment where
they are surrounded only by other queer youth is not the “real world.” But
since when is high school considered to be the “real world”?
Besides, teenagers spend about seven hours a day in school; the other 17 are
with their families, friends, religious communities, local neighborhoods and
in extracurricular activities, where they undoubtedly encounter heterosexism,
homophobia, biphobia and transphobia. So subjecting them to assaults at school
isn’t necessary for them to learn how to “deal with straight people.”
Also, the school has spots for fewer than 200 teenagers, hardly be enough
to segregate all gay youth from every high school.
The Harvey Milk School only accepts the most at-risk youth. These are young
people like the ones I interviewed for my master’s thesis. They are high-schoolers
like Alluvion, a gender-bending teenager who survived repeated, on-campus physical
and sexual assaults.
Or like Crystal, a male-to-female youth who was raped twice in high school,
once by a boy and once by a girl. Or Taylor, an extremely butch teen who was
beaten with a belt on one occasion and, on another, raped while other students
watched.
Or Falon and Katie, two trans girls who were literally burned by their peers.
Would Harvey Milk’s opponents have willed these teens to stay in their
schools? Or should they have dropped out instead of being in a safe environment
in which to complete their diplomas?
This is the stark choice facing many severely abused LGBTQ young people. Grand
rhetoric about being “integrated” or “assimilating into society” has
little place in the lives of youth who make daily choices about how to survive
school. Those opposed to the Harvey Milk School might attempt to imagine themselves
facing such a decision.
As LGBTQ adults, we have our own choice: We can support our queer teens by
working to improve their mainstream schools and by offering the most deeply
abused youth an alternative or we can focus only on fixing mainstream schools,
allowing the most at-risk young people to suffer continued harassment and assault
from their peers.
For such teens, change in individual schools in five or 10 years will be too
late.
Washington, D.C.
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