Box Turtle Bulletin

Peter LaBarbera Celebrates Memorial Weekend at Leather Event

This past weekend I went to Disneyland. It was a little rainy so the lines were short and we had a wonderful time. The next day we went to The Magic Castle for a great meal and to be amazed by prestidigitation. Throw in dinner at Saddleranch (so my friends could ride the mechanical bull), a walk on Venice Beach, and a showing of Indiana Jones and it was quite the gay weekend.

Meanwhile, Peter LaBarbera was living up to his nickname and having quite another type of gay weekend. He spent his Memorial Day celebration at the International Mr. Leather competition in Chicago. IML is an event, mostly for gay men, that celebrates the leather community. It also appeals to fetishists including those whose sexual tastes run to the unconventional or peculiar.

IML really isn’t my cup of tea – I tend to think leather is best when made into a belt or a pair of shoes. So it would never cross my mind to trek out to Chicago and spend my time in a hotel ballroom gawking at fetish porn.

But LaBarbera never misses a year.

And, yet again, Memorial Weekend found him oogling men in leather regalia and taking pictures of every bare butt cheek or risque poster he could find. Pete could hardly wait to get back to tell his buddy Matt “Bam Bam” Barber about all of the pig sex and watersports and “sodomy on steroids” that he found. Just think, gasp, of all the raunchy sex that was going on right in the very hotel where he was standing! Pete and Bam Bam almost worked themselves into a froth going on about anal sex and fetishes and all sorts of “satanic, depraved sodomitic orgies involving feces and urine”.

Now I’m a tolerant guy. If you’d rather check out the Pecs and Personality contest than sail with the Pirates of the Caribbean, it’s no business of mine. If your idea of fun is a boot shining contest rather than watching a really impressive card trick, who am I to complain?

But if you go, I have a word of advice: avoid getting your picture taken by LaBarbera. I don’t even want to think about how Pete uses those pictures. Ick.

See also:
LaBarbera Blames Gays for Heterosexual Beastiality Porn

Transgender Advocates’ Statements on APA DSM Workgroups

The American Psychiatric Association has convened several panels to discuss revisions to the Diagnostics and Statistical Manual (DSM), which is currently in its fourth edition (DSM-IV). It’s a standard practice for the APA to revise the manual every decade or so in order to incorporate knowledge generated by more current research.

The APA has begun the work of compiling the data for DSM-V, and that process has sparked several strange rumors around the Internet that really didn’t ring true with me. According to a few of these rumors, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) is poised to either reinstate homosexuality in the Diagnostics and Statistical Manual (DSM), or that the APA was going to decide to approve of sexual reorientation therapy. There is nothing however to suggest that anything like that will be happening.

But most of these rumors surround the diagnosis of Gender Identity Disorder (GID), which is of particular interest to the transgender community. These rumors are centered around two researchers who have been appointed to some of the working groups: Kenneth Zucker, who chairs the Sexual and Gender Identity Disorders work group, and Ray Blanchard, who chairs the Paraphilias subworkgroup under Zucker.

To understand transgender people’s concern about these two appointments, some background is in order. Kenneth Zucker and Ray Blanchard are associated with the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto, Canada. This center resulted from the merger of four mental health centers, one of which was the Clarke Institute of Psychiatry. The Clarke Institute was the referral agency for transgender clients who wanted to surgically transition.

Many transgender clients found their treatment in the hands of the Clarke Institute degrading and offensive, feelings which were greatly magnified by the Institute’s main mission of treating sex offenders. Transgender clients often describe inappropriate and degrading tests and experiences at the institute. In fact, feelings run so deeply about the Clarke Institute that some transgender advocates have dubbed it “Jurassic Clarke.”, while others append the adjective “notorious” in front of the Institute’s name so routinely that one might be tempted to think that its official name was “The Notorious Clarke Institute.”

Because of the Clarke Institute’s history, virtually anything emanating from the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health is suspect among the transgender community, and those suspicions often radiate to the rest of the LGBT community.

Associations with the Clarke Institute however isn’t the only source of transgender advocates’ concerns. Also controversial are some of Blanchard’s theories on MtF transgender etiology that he calls “autogynephilia,”which many people find deeply offensive and off the mark. (Blanchard, on the other hand, is a leading researcher into what he believes to be the biological causes of male homosexuality.) Also controversial is Zucker’s approach to treating transgender clients, which involves counseling the client to take on behaviors and attitudes which are considered to be more socially appropriate to that person’s biological sex. This is an approach which raises alarm bells among gays and lesbians who recognize the parallels to sexual reorientation therapies, which may be the source of the rumors concerning homosexuality and sexual reorientation therapy that I mentioned earlier.

Today, we have a statement from four Transgender advocacy groups, which will hopefully provide some clarification on Zucker’s and Blanchard’s role in the DSM-V revision.

Statement from:

National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE)
Transgender Law and Policy Institute (TLPI)
Transgender Law Center (TLC)
Transgender Youth Family Allies (TYFA)

On May 1, 2008, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) announced the composition of work groups to review scientific advances and research-based information to develop the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-V). The composition and scope of the work group on Sexual and Gender Identity Disorders and two subgroups are of great interest to transgender people and therefore to our organizations.

Though no consensus exists among transgender people about whether and how a GID diagnosis should be in the DSM-V, there is certainly agreement that decisions made by the APA about transgender and gender non-conforming people will deeply affect the lives of millions of transgender adults, adolescents and children.

We have met with and strongly encouraged the APA to closely adhere to its stated commitment to scientific process regarding diagnosis of transgender people. We are confident that a fair, unbiased review of current knowledge can result in a DSM-V that can move society toward a more rational and humane understanding of transgender people.

We encourage our transgender brothers and sisters to approach this issue with thoughtful consideration of all available information. To that end, we encourage transgender people and allies to remember that:

The naming of this working group on May 1 was not the commencement of advocacy around rethinking or revision of the GID diagnosis. Thoughtful advocates, within and without the APA, have been working on this issue for several years and they will continue to do so for several more, through at least 2012 when the DSM-V is finalized. We look forward to strengthening our relationships and positive communication channels with the many APA-affiliated professionals who are knowledgeable and understanding of transgender issues.

It is inconceivable that in the 21st century any credible scientist or medical professional would recommend any discredited treatment that would attempt to change a person’s core gender identity or sexual orientation. Such treatments have no empirical basis and are harmful. Importantly though, the DSM consists of diagnoses and not treatments. As such, the DSM-V will not offer any treatment recommendations for transgender people of any age.

The APA has created several mechanisms for thoughtful input into the DSM revision process from mental health professionals as well as laypeople affected by the DSM. We encourage transgender people and allies, especially mental health professionals, to utilize these systems to appropriately impact the process. In particular the APA has created a website through which written comments can be submitted. Additionally, as the DSM-V development process advances, working groups are charged with seeking the counsel and input of various advisers who will be selected from various clinicians, academics and other stakeholders. We will advocate for the inclusion of fair-minded advisors who are committed to providing only scientific, fair, reasonable and humane input. We are hopeful that these systems will help provide sufficient information to assure a fair and scientific process for the creation of the DSM-V.

Public acceptance of transgender people and anti-discrimination protections have been advancing swiftly. This is in large part due to scientific and medical advances, but also to the assertive, vigilant and intelligent activism of thousands of transgender people and our allies. While transgender people’s history with the psychiatric and medical professions has been, at times, fraught with misunderstanding and tainted by bigotry, we are optimistic that current and developing scientific research and clinical data will further the understanding of transgender issues among health care professionals and the public.

National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE)
www.nctequality.org

Transgender Law and Policy Institute (TLPI)
www.transgenderlaw.org

Transgender Law Center (TLC)
www.transgenderlawcenter.org

Transgender Youth Family Allies (TYFA)
www.imatyfa.org

Greece’s First Gay Marriage Announced

Mayor Tassos Alfieris of the Greek island of Tilos hopes to officiate the first same-sex wedding ceremony in Greece, after two gay men took the first official step toward marriage by publishing a wedding bann (notice) in a local newspaper.

In March a lesbian organization discovered that a 26-year-old law on marriage doesn’t specify gender in civil weddings. This will be the first test case of that loophole. No date has been set for the civil ceremony.

Update: A senior Greek prosecutor is threatening Mayor Alfieris with criminal changes if he goes ahead with plans to officiate the wedding.

Did You Know…

… that one of the three dissenting justices in the recent California Supreme Court ruling on same-sex marriages was a lesbian?

Russian President Intervenes on Moscow Pride

It has been learned that Russian President Dmitry Medvedev ordered the Prefecture of the Central Administrative area of Moscow to authorize a Gay Pride demonstration. This came after Moscow Pride organizers had applied for permission to hold five marches every day in May. All of the applications have been denied by Moscow municipal authorities however, claiming that the marches would “endanger public order and cause negative reaction of the majority of the population.”

Local organizers say they have not received confirmation from Moscow City officials of permission to hold the event. They plan on conducting a small demonstration this Sunday in front of Moscow City Hall.

Moscow had banned Pride events in 2006 and 2007. Last year’s Pride demonstration ended in violence. Moscow mayor Mayor Yuri Luzhkov has branded gay Pride parades as “satanic” and vowed that they would never be permitted in the capital.

Turkey Bans LGBT Group

In a move that is sure to complicate Turkey’s longstanding push to enter the European Union, a Turkish court ordered the closure of a Turkish gay rights group.

The Istanbul city government charged that Lambda Istanbul is an association which violates the”law and morals” of the Penal Code and Article 41 of the Turkish constitution, which is deals with “the peace and welfare of the family.” The prosecutor’s office initially rejected the government’s claim, citing freedom of association. But the government then appealed to the Beyoglu 3rd Civic Court of First Instance, which ordered Lambda Istanbul closed. Lambda will appeal the decision.

Marriage is Coming to Norway

Anti-gays like to wail and moan about how awful, just awful, things have gotten since Norway “began allowing same-sex marriage in the 1990s.” But as we pointed out, while Norway has allowed civil unions since 1993, it does not currently recognize gay marriage.

That is all about to change.

Back in March we told you that Norway had proposed legislation that would allow for same-sex marriage. Now the AP reports that adequate support is pledged to ensure passage.

Two Norwegian opposition parties on Thursday backed the rights of gay couples to marry in church, adopt and have assisted pregnancies, effectively assuring the passage of a new equality law next month.

The new law would allow marriage, adoption, and assisted procreation for same-sex couples. It seems that the Norwegians took a little closer look at their society and culture and decided that gay couples just aren’t the curse that anti-gays like to think they are.

32% of US Citizens Covered by Couple Recognition

With the announcement by Governor Paterson of New York that his state would enact policies to recognize out of state same-sex marriages (in accordance with a court ruling), the gay citizens of the first and third largest states now can rest assured that their state government will honor their marriages.

Though same-sex marriages may (as of June 17th) take place only in Massachusetts and California, such marriages are now recognized in New York and (perhaps) Rhode Island. In total 63 million Americans, or 20.7%, live in marriage recognition states.

States that allow all or nearly all of the attributes of marriage under some other name, New Jersey, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Oregon, contribute another 18 million, or 5.9%. Those who offer limited recognition, Washington, Maine, Hawaii, Maryland, and the District of Columbia, have populations totaling 15 million or 5.0%.

In total 31.6% of US residents are able to avail themselves of protections for their same-sex families.

The sky hasn’t fallen.

Macy’s Celebrates Marriage Equality

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger isn’t the only one hoping for an economic boom as gay couples go to California to get married. Macy’s is celebrating marriage equality in California as well — the same way they celebrate President’s day and Christmas:

First comes love. Then Comes Marriage. And now it’s a milestone every couple in California can celebrate. Let Macy’s Wedding Gift and Registry help you start your new life together.

And now all the LGBT blogs are spreading Macy’s latest ad around the internet, effectively giving Macy’s tons of free advertising. Smart move. Ah, the magic of Macy’s…

Click here to see the full ad

Denver Marriage Sit-In Particpants And Ex-Gay Survivor Activists To Speak Sunday At Soulforce Event

Denver residents Kate Burns and her partner Sheila Schroeder will be speaking Sunday at MCC of the Rockies about last year’s sit-in at the county clerk’s office. Since the focus of the gathering is on Soulforce activism also speaking will be ex-gay survivor activists Daniel Gonzales and Christine Bakke.

MCC Of The Rockies
(10th & Clarkson in Denver)
Sunday, June 1st from 1-3pm

This forum is after the normal Sunday service so there won’t be any religion for those of you averse to such things.

New York Implements Court Ruling to Recognize Same-Sex Marriages

In a direct response to a February state appeals court ruling, New York Gov. David Paterson has ordered state agencies to recognize same-sex marriages performed in states and countries where they are legal. The governor’s legal counsel issued a memo on May 14 directing state agencies to revise policies and regulations to recognize same-sex marriages performed in California, Massachusetts, Canada and other countries that allow gays and lesbians to marry. The revisions will affect as many as 1,300 statutes and regulations in New York.

While the state will now recognize same-sex marriages performed elsewhere, state law does not permit same-sex couples to marry in New York. Gov. Paterson’s predecessor, Eliot Spitzer, introduced a bill last year that would have legalized same-sex marriage. The Democratic-controlled Assembly passed the bill, but the Republican-led Senate has refused to bring it to a vote. Gov. Paterson described the move to recognize out-of-state messages as “a strong step toward marriage equality.”

Field Poll: Californians Support Same-Sex Marriage

Contrary to last week’s Los Angeles Times/KTLA poll, a new Field Poll released yesterday (PDF: 49KB/8 pages) shows a historic shift in California voters’ support for same-sex marriage. For the first time in history, a majority of California voters now say they support same-sex marriage and oppose a proposed anti-marriage state constitutional amendment.

The poll, taken after the California Supreme Court decision to allow same-sex marriage, asked two groups of voters differently worded questions about same sex marriage. When they were asked about “barring marriage between gay and lesbian couples,” they opposed the ban by 54 to 40 percent. When voters were asked whether they favored or opposed “having the state constitution prohibit same-sex marriage,” they opposed the ban, 51 to 43 percent. The margin of error for these two questions was +/- 5.0%. The maximum margin of error overall was 3.2%.

There were some interesting generational differences:

And there were some religious differences as well. Born-again Christians opposed same-sex marriage by 68% to 24%. Protestants in general were opposed, 57% to 34% , and Catholics were were narrowly opposed, 48% to 45%. Voters from other religious groups favored same-sex marriage by 61% to 33%, while people with no religious affiliation supported same-sex marriage by 81% to 12%.

Nordic Myths

Former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa) recently published an op-ed denouncing the recent California Supreme Court ruling on same-sex marriage. There’s much to criticize in Sen. Santorum’s op-ed, but this statistical nugget stood out in particular:

Look at Norway. It began allowing same-sex marriage in the 1990s. In just the last decade, its heterosexual-marriage rates have nose-dived and its out-of-wedlock birthrate skyrocketed to 80 percent for firstborn children.

Anti-gay activists are returning once again to Scandinavian marriage and birthrate statistics as real-world examples of what happens when you allow same-sex marriage. The argument goes something like this: If you allow same-sex marriage like Scandinavia did, then you will soon see rising out-of-wedlock birthrates and a general breakdown in marriage.

But right off the bat, Sen. Santorum gets it wrong about same-sex marriage in Norway because there is no same-sex marriage there. Instead, Norway as adopted a limited form of civil unions. Norway’s 1993 civil unions laws, for example, do not permit adoptions by same-sex couples (although Norwegian law was later changed to allow a parent to adopt his partner’s children). Norway also prohibits artificial insemination for same-sex couples as well.

And what about that statistic: Eighty percent of all firstborn children in Norway are born out of wedlock? Where did he get that figure?

Well one thing I know for certain is that Santorum didn’t get it from the StatBank Norway website. StatBank Norway is the official repository for all statistical information about Norway. They have tons of statistics on population growth and characteristics, births, deaths, marriage, divorce, and economic data. But I’ve been unable to find anything on their web site breaking down the family status of firstborn children.

And so I started looking around for where this 80 percent statistic might have come from. It appears to have originated with Stanly Kurtz’s National Review article from May 25, 2004, where he claims:

Add the children of single parents and step families, and we are surely at over 50 percent of children living with unmarried parents in Norway’s liberal north. If that sounds high, consider that in 2002, 83 percent of first-born children in the northern Norwegian county of Nord-Troendelag were born outside of marriage, as were 58 percent of subsequent children.

If what Kurtz says is true, then it’s not all of Norway that is experiencing this explosion of firstborn babies born outside of marriage. It is just one county of Nord-Troendelag. But Kurtz doesn’t provide any citation for that statistic, so we still don’t know where it comes from. He later provides a link to a summary from StatBank Norway, but it doesn’t mention the firstborn statistic at all. (I’ve updated the link to a cached version of the page as it appeared on StatBank Norway as of April 6, 2004.) So we’re still left in the dark as to where this statistic came from, and we have no way to verify whether it’s true or not.

But we can verify that Norway’s overall birth rate outside of marriage is pretty high, and it has been for quite some time. We can see this by combining data from Norway’s Statistical Yearbooks for 2007 and 1996 and plotting that data on a single graph. When we do that, we can see that the rate of births outside of marriage had skyrocketed throughout the seventies and eighties, only to level off somewhat in the 1990’s and 2000’s.

But more specifically with respect to civil unions, look at what the data tells us:

1. Before 1993, the percentage of births outside of marriage grew steadily by an average of about 9% per year.
2. After civil unions were enacted in 1993, the growth of that birth rate slowed dramatically. The the growth rate fell from 9% per year to an average of less than 1.5% per year between 1993 and 2006.

Which means that if there were a cause and effect between Norway’s birth rate outside of marriage and providing civil unions for same-sex couples, the data suggests that civil unions actually had a dramatic affect in slowing the rate of births outside of marriage.

Now I don’t believe that a case can be made linking civil unions with the rate of births outside of marriage. But if Santorum, Kurtz or anyone else insists on there being a connection, then so be it. The data is on our side.

Jeremy Hooper’s Commentary on Linda Harvey

Jeremy Hooper at Good As You got wind of our little tussle with Mission America’s Linda Harvey, who demanded that we remove her photo from Timothy Kincaid’s post exposing her dishonesty about the Day of Silence.

Now I would have probably written a long dissertation about the “fair use” doctrine in copyright law, which gives us permission to copy small works without attribution or permission for purposes of parody, criticism, commentary, news reporting, educational use, etc. I also would have written at length about how posting non-reproducible thumbnails are acceptable under copyright laws, a rule that is mainly intended to protect works of art from theft — and not to protect dishonest people from embarrassment.

Let’s just say that Jeremy’s approach to the question was a little different.

Barbados Is No Jamaica

There is no question that the Caribbean islands are not as friendly to gay people as, say, Chelsea or West Hollywood. But Robert Best in Barbados’ Nationnews.com makes the argument that Barbados will not follow Jamaica’s increasing hostility and violence towards gays.

Barbados, like some other Caribbean nations, prefers to limit it’s response to mockery and laughter.

For example, even before there was talk about “gay rights”, for generations “she she” men have had to endure ridicule but for the most part they were never run out of town. Nor has it been common practice for people who are “straight” to refuse them the right to live among them.

What has been more likely is for “she she” men to find people mimicking their antics while regarding them with amusement rather than see them as objects of hatred.

Best then argues that the physician that provides care is welcome whatever their sexual orientation and cautions that some people have made compromises that allow them to reconcile their difficulties around the issue. While I would wish that Best’s illustrations of difference were examples of respect and support, I believe his sincerity.

Barbados is no gay paradise. In fact, if has some of the most punitive sodomy laws. But if all Barbadans are like Best, I would feel welcomed on their islands.

I was speaking with a heterosexual woman this weekend who was shocked to hear about the homophobia that runs unchecked on Jamaica. Her last vacation was on the island, but because she loves her gay brother and her gay friends, she vowed not to return.

It’s nice to know that there are other places of equal beauty that can benefit from the tourism from gay men and women, their friends, families, coworkers, neighbors, and just plain ol’ people of good will and conscience. And it’s nice to know that some on Barbados are trying to make it such a place.