Under the Udala Trees — debunking Biblical “cures” for lesbians and others

As someone who survived ex-gay ministries and conversion therapies in the name of religion, I am always cautious when reading narratives about similar experiences. There is always a risk I can re-trumatize myself. After my partner, Glen Retief, attended a reading by Nigerian-American author, Chinelo Okparanta, he insisted I would find her novel, Under the Udala Trees, both beautiful and moving.

Glen was so right in large part because Okparanta is such a skilled writer. She expertly recreates the Bianfran/Nigerian Civil War as we see it from a child’s eye. The horrors of this conflict and the extreme hunger people experienced are illuminated along with loving acts of survival and caring. This little girl, Ijeoma, is sent away by her deeply religious Christian mother for her own safety and survival. While away, Ijeoma enters puberty and begins a a romantic and sexual relationship with another young woman, a Muslim around her age who is also displaced by the war. Eventually they are discovered. Ijeoma is sent home where her mother attempts to “cure” her of her lesbian orientation.

From the Amazon site:

As Edwidge Danticat has made personal the legacy of Haiti’s political coming of age, Okparanta’s Under the Udala Trees uses one woman’s lifetime to examine the ways in which Nigerians continue to struggle toward selfhood. Even as their nation contends with and recovers from the effects of war and division, Nigerian lives are also wrecked and lost from taboo and prejudice. This story offers a glimmer of hope — a future where a woman might just be able to shape her life around truth and love.

Chinelo Okparanta

For folks like me who were bullied about my sexuality by Bible passages, Okparanta brilliantly goes through these clobber passages and deftly addresses the inaccuracies of interpretations by anti-LGBTQ religious leaders. Her young character, Ijeoma, uses simple logic to help herself stay grounded in the midst of the biblical barrage leveled against her by her mother.

Under the Udala Trees works on so many levels–as good literature, as a way for American LGBTQ to experience a Western African story of a young woman who loves another woman, and a means for folks like me who have been traumatized by cruel and inaccurate biblical interpretations in order undo some of the damage.

The book reads well, but if you enjoy audio books, you may want to check out the Audible version narrated by Robin Miles. She interprets the story well and flows seamlessly in and out of English.

LGBTQ in 2017 — looking behind and ahead

What is Lurking in that Cabinet?

Seems these days no mater what topic is important to you, there is genuine uncertainty to what the future holds in the USA and beyond. Endless speculating is going into the cabinet selections made by President-elect Donald Trump and how these men (well mostly men) will shape policy regarding criminal justice, pollution, women’s rights, foreign affairs, and LGBTQ issues.

Virtually every news report I read highlights how a particular proposed cabinet member has historically stood opposed to the very agency he will likely head. Then perhaps looking for a silver lining in the forming storm clouds, the writer speculates on how that cabinet member might actually do something useful in his position. I’ve seen headlines about Rex Tillerson being a potential campion of LGBTQ rights globally.

This EXXON oil executive also dropped the news that he sees climate change as “just an engineering problem.” Climate advocates, who have grown more and more alarmed at a cabinet of men dismissive of climate change and its human causes, might possibly draw some hope from this statement. I mean Tillerson is suggesting that he sees climate change as a problem. That’s something. A tiny morsel. And in looking at it as one that requires engineering (geo-engineering?) will this lead to an open discussion about the cost analysis of jerry rigging the atmosphere compared to what it will cost and what we might gain when we reduce the pollution we have been pumping into it?

Possibly. But the only thing we can say is that we simply do not know.

Gay Time Travel to a simpler more oppressive time

Kimmy Schmidt in the bunker with fellow captives

As we look ahead to 2017, my gaze has been cast back to the past, nearly 20 years ago when I was still trapped in dream to become a masculine-presenting, fully-functioning heterosexual. It was a dream that rose out of the politically conservative and anti-gay world of the early 1980’s. I got trapped into a time capsule for nearly 20 years. When I finally emerged in 1999, like Kimmy Schmidt out of her bunker, the world had begun to shift towards a wider inclusion of LGBTQ people and a path to legal rights and protections.

People now worry if some of the gains will be lost. Will we have to fight the same battles over again? Will the world of conversion therapy raise its ugly head again? Possible, but the only thing we can say is that we simply do not know.

What we do know is that LGBTQ rights have already been challenged in the USA, particularly for transgender people. 2016 was the year of the bathroom bills. Even Elizabeth Jeremiah, that funky church lady with wild notions, chimed in.

The New Ex-Gay Movement is Global and Anti-Trans

Woven Chronicle by Reena Saini Kallat at MOMA

And while gay conversion therapy in the USA has been greatly challenged and reduced, it has expanded globally with American exports of it in Eastern Europe, Southern Africa, throughout Latin America, and parts of Asia. In the USA one can still find ex-gay groups and praying away the gay still happens at lots of churches, gays and lesbians are far less the target of these treatments that they once were. There are even laws banning the practice for minors.

As I wrote this week in the Huffington Post though, these bans do not affect the type of conversion treatments people receive through churches and Christian counseling. And while there may be a decrease in this practice targeting gay and lesbians youth and adults, from what I have been hearing from transgender activists, it is a dangerous practice perpetuated against transgender and gender non-binary youth and adults.

My friend, Diana, a trans equality activist in New England, informed me of the 2015 US Transgender Survey. Professionals counseling a person away from being transgender is so common that the researchers included it in the survey. The respondents reveal the devastating effects.

Participants who had a professional try to stop them from being transgender were:

Far more likely to currently be experiencing serious psychological distress (47%) than those who did not have the experience (34%).

More likely to have attempted suicide (58%) than those who did not have the experience (39%).

Nearly three times as likely to have run away from home (22%) than those who did not have the experience (8%).

More likely to have ever experienced homelessness (46%) than those who did not have the experience (29%).

More likely to have ever done sex work (18%) than those who did not have the experience (11%).

How to care about everything without falling apart

I conclude the piece with some reflections about our work ahead, and need to embrace multiple issues at the same time while figuring out which ones we can regularly take on while supporting people and groups doing the work we cannot.

While I am concerned the conversion therapists might feel they have been given another chance to do their business on LGBTQ youth and adults, I am far more alarmed about the potential rolling back of legal rights and protections for LGBTQ people. State and local as well as federal efforts to undermine LGBTQ access to housing, employment, health care, marriage rights, adoption, and immigration need to be closely monitored and assertively rebuffed by lawmakers and citizens regardless of party affiliation.

Sadly these fights may well distract many of us from other areas where our attention in needed: prison reform, energy policy, eradicating homelessness and poverty, supporting for LGBTQ seniors, improving policing practices, and a host of other issues. These are days we need to be focused and disciplined, supportive of each other, willing to take on what we are able to do, asserting our rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

One response from many LGBTQ orgs is to request more financial donations. No doubt justice work costs money as well as effort. As I did in 2016, I commit to monthly donations to the Transgender Justice Funding Project, “a community-led funding initiative founded in 2012 to support grassroots, trans justice groups run by and for trans people.” While lots of people are on limited budgets, many Americans can make the necessary sacrifices to donate regularly to a cause that is essential in the days ahead.

Questions for You:

As we speculate about the road ahead for LGBTQ people, I am curious about your thoughts, your concerns, and your intentions for this new year. How can I be supportive to you and what messages do you hope to magnify in the coming months?

Happy 2017. May it be filled with greater freedoms, more opportunities, and closer knit communities.

Where are they now? the Ex-Gay Edition

Homo No Mo — No More!

For over 20 years the Ex-Gay Movement, with its promises to heal homosexuals, played large in my life. First I was caught up in that madness desperately believing I would be more valuable to God, church, and society in general if I were a fully functioning heterosexual masculine man. (My husband is thrilled that I failed at that!) After I escaped ex-gay treatment, I spent a time speaking out against the dangers of gay conversion therapy in whatever forms it took.

From about 2008 I have been trying to move on to other issues that I find much more interesting: queer theology, transgender equality and liberation, and climate change as a social justice issue. Still the ex-gay thing pops up quite regularly. Some states passed laws banning conversion therapy for minors. Even President Obama himself denounced treatments to “cure” LGBTQ people after the suicide of Leelah Alcorn.

The Crap is Back

Protesting Outside of NARTH Nov 8, 2008

With another presidential election we now have the ex-gay nonsense come up again. This time the Republican Party platform has included it as one of its planks (along with support for discrimination against transgender people and public restrooms.)

At first when I read a headline about Republican platform and ex-gay movement, I thought that they too, like every medical association in the world, loads of faith organizations, and countless politicians issued a statement declaring reparative therapy is wrong and harmful. I mean they are trying to appeal to a wider base, right? They even have a lesbian on the committee to develop the platform. But no, I was mistaken.

As the Republican National Convention begins, party heads are doing damage control after seeing the negative response to the party platform plank that supports conversion therapy. The Advocate magazine reports that RNC head Reince Priebus insists that the party doesn’t endorse reparative therapy.

The plank, pushed by Family Research Council president and convention delegate Tony Perkins, reads, “We support the right of parents to determine the proper treatment or therapy, for their minor children.” Several states and at least one city have barred licensed therapists from subjecting minors to “ex-gay” therapy, and the plank appears to be aimed at such bans. But Priebus contended the plank is not an endorsement of this type of therapy, which has been condemned by medical groups as ineffective and harmful.

Where are they now?

Protesting Outside of NARTH Nov 8, 2008

Steven Blum, a journalist in California, contacted me in hopes of better understanding the current status of the ex-gay movement. Didn’t it just quietly go away? I explained that it went underground and overseas.

Toscano says he wouldn’t be surprised if many church counselors today were schooled in the Exodus dogma of yesteryear, but he doesn’t think they’re having much of an impact on congregants anymore. Scrolling through the counselors in the Restored Hope Network, it’s hard not to imagine most of these men and women fruitlessly waiting in their counseling rooms for gays who want to be saved. “Some of these Christian counselors still live in cultural bubbles and they earnestly don’t know that what they were told [about sexuality] was false,” he adds.

But the most troubling thing about the ex-gay movement is that America has exported it, according to Toscano “It’s like the failed tobacco industry: Once they started losing market share, they just shipped their product overseas” — in the case of conversion therapy, to Eastern Europe, Southern and Eastern Africa and parts of Asia and Latin America, in particular, where ministries invest millions of dollars annually in conferences, workshops, publications and more.

Nov 8, 2008 Protest Outside NARTH

In his article, Checking in With the Ex-Gay Movement, Blum asks, “Where are they now?” like unearthing a one-hit wonder from the 1990’s. He highlights a group called Desert Streams, one that has flown under the radar for a long time. It is alive and well, still quiet, but ambitious and entrepreneurial. They offer healing courses all over the world that look at a variety of issues–including how to straighten out an LGBTQ person.

Supporting Ex-Gay Treatment Causes Harm to your Cause

The good news is that in the USA the ex-gay movement has lost its power. There are less and less reasons for people to pursue these programs. Most realize they do not work–not as advertised for sure–and more and more people realize they are dangerous–they cause real harm.

Likely embracing ex-gay therapy will also cause harm to the Republican Party.

Featured image : Broken by ex-gay survivor Jason T. Ingram. Photos curtesy of Beyond Ex-Gay.

Beyond Marriage Equality: Transgender people and criminal justice

Have you read any of the New York Times’ series of editorials on transgender lives and issues? Transgender Today presents essays that have highlighted equality, workplace related issues, access to public restrooms, romance, transgender people in the military, and visibility. While my non-violent, anti-war Quaker sensibilities get ruffled by pieces entitled, Transgender in the C.I.A., I find it encouraging that the New York Times is devoting so much space and thought to transgender issues. These are not just guest op-eds either; rather these pieces come with the byline: The Editorial Board. The views represent the opinions of the newspaper’s editors. And while they expound on critical issues, the writers also focus on individual stories.

poster during the campaign to free CeCe McDonald

The most recent editorial in the Transgender Today series is about incarceration and transgender people. Prisons and Jails Put Transgender People at Risk. The editors write about Estrella Sánchez:

Ms. Sánchez, a 28-year-old transgender woman from Mexico, was held in immigration detention for nearly a year, beginning in 2012. She was placed in solitary confinement for a month, solely because of her gender identity. At every place she was held, inmates directed slurs at her in front of guards, who routinely laughed. The harassment she faced in detention was a cruel reminder of the abuse she suffered in Mexico, which she had hoped to escape when she came to the United States in 2005.

They go on to graphically outline the abuses Ms Sánchez experienced in detention then give us a small window into what her life is like now that she has begun a new life in the US outside of prison.

They then outline myriad issues affecting most transgender people confronted by the criminal justice system.

In the United States, transgender people are routinely subjected to harassment, but few are as powerless as those in prison. As more have become vocal about their safety and their rights, prison systems that segregate inmates along conventional gender lines are facing mounting challenges. While a few have changed housing policies, the vast majority have not.

Transgender people are much more likely than the population at large to be imprisoned at some point in their lives. They are at high risk of police discrimination and abuse; many transgender women have been searched or arrested on suspicion of prostitution based on little more than their appearance. Transgender people also face widespread employment discrimination, and many turn to illegal activities to support themselves.

…

When they are in custody, transgender people face disproportionate risks. According to a 2011-12 survey by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, 39.9 percent of transgender prison inmates and 26.8 percent of transgender jail inmates reported unwanted sexual activity with other inmates or sexual activity with prison staff members, which is always considered nonconsensual under the law, in the previous year — 10 times higher than for the general prison and jail populations.

As a white, cisgender, married gay man, I am easily shielded from the harsh realities regularly faced by immigrants and inmates–most of whom are people of color. I run the risk of rejoicing in marriage equality then leaving off the fight for queer justice as I settle into domestic bliss. This is why diversity in our LGBTQ spaces and organizations is so important. The movement becomes sound and just when we hear a variety of stories and experiences. People’s needs get revealed. Just like lesbian, gay, and bisexual activists for marriage equality relentlessly and rightfully forced straight folks to hear stories about lesbian and gay relationships, families, discrimination, and dreams in hopes that these would move straight folks to action and justice, similarly hearing stories about the challenges faced by transgender and gender queer people can and should dislodge cisgender lesbians, bisexual, and gays from a comfortable place of ignorant complacency.

We fought for our rights, but we also benefited from those who stood alongside of us in solidarity. We must now educate ourselves about other LGBTQ folks with different experiences than our own so that we engage in the same work for justice we insisted straight people pursue. A good place to start right now is this New York Times editorial, Prisons and Jails Put Transgender People at Risk. You can read a variety of articles over at Huffington Post. Deepen your understanding and explore the National Center for Transgender Rights.

Featured image: Estrella Sánchez, a transgender woman from Mexico.CreditDamon Winter/The New York Times

Wow I am Super Gay Married! Now What?

After a long day of meetings in preparation of lobbying, my husband, Glen Retief, takes a little cat nap.

Yesterday as I joyfully toiled away at editing episode 29 of Climate Stew, the Supreme Court of the United States passed down a ruling that made marriage equality the law of the land in all 50 states. When I emerged from my study, my husband, Glen Retief, turned to me and said:

I can’t keep up with the anniversary list! June 24, meeting at Friends General Conference. July 21, Quaker wedding. April 23, domestic partner contract. September 13, legal wedding in Lake Huntington. And now finally June 26, all 50 states.

I suggested loved ones can help us continually celebrate our various anniversaries by signing us up for Harry & David’s Fruit of the Month club.

I stood in front of the Supreme Court this week knowing that the court was about to rule; I assumed good news. It is about time–past time. So much energy, money, time, effort has gone into this moment. I am very very grateful to all of the people–LGBTQ activists, straight allies, affirming church folk, lawmakers, and those in the media who contributed to this moment in history. Rejoicing and thanksgiving are in order.

Just like our Capitol building here in the USA, LGBTQ rights and issues still need a lot of work.

But once the confetti settles and we wash off all the glitter, then what? This is a huge win, but marriage discrimination has by no means been the only issue making life hard for LGBTQ people. We still have work to do. To name a few:

LGBTQ youth homelessness
Employment non-discrimination in all 50 states
The plight of transgender immigrants and inmates
LGBTQ senior citizen issues

Then there is the Queerest Issue of them all: Climate Change. No seriously, I see Climate Change as an issue that desperately needs attention from LGBTQ people, in part because of how we can think outside the box. We also have a unique set of skills to face crisis and experience in doing so. We also need to consider that LGBTQ not only are affected by climate change, but in some ways are affected more than non-LGBTQ people. I know it sounds weird. But the way the world is set up it almost seems that climate change is racist, sexist, classist, and possibly even anti-LGBTQ. So there is work to do.

Here I stand in front of the Supreme Court musing over my own person queer agenda and my next steps as a super married gay man.

There is something so queer about Climate Change

About two years ago I began asking an odd and intriguing question: What is a Queer Response to Climate Change? Wow, what a rich query (queery?) that keeps me thinking, learning, and speaking.

So what are some queer responses to climate change? Last September as I prepared to trudge along with the People’s Climate Pride Parade, (um, March) I wrote a Huffington Post piece: Why on Earth is this Gay Guy Marching for Climate? Then in February at the Creating Change conference, I got together with colleagues to explore diverse queer responses to climate change.

In considering the question, I look at my own weird queer experience (17 years trying to de-gay myself for Jesus) and how that coming out story is directly connected to coming out as someone concerned about climate. The connection with climate change and my queer journey is not about bears (though bears are hot) or polar bears (those adorably vicious creatures), but about equality. I explain:

In studying climate change, I was shocked to learn that globally these rapid changes on earth affect women more than men. They also affect people of color more than white folks (even in the US.) That made me wonder: Does climate change affect LGBTQ people more than cisgender heterosexuals? It just might, particularly when it comes to housing.

In looking at Climate Change I also began to wonder if LGBTQ folks are uniquely positioned to help the world face this crisis and address it. In speaking with Rev. Nancy Wilson of the Metropolitan Community Church, I learned about our queer ancestor’s responses to the HIV/AIDS Crisis and lessons from that plague that will be valuable to us as we face the current and growing climate crisis.

Using comedy and one of my favorite characters from my shows, Marvin Bloom, I dug in deeper to queer responses to climate change and the resiliency that transgender, bisexual, queer, lesbian, and gay folks have developed through so many challenges over the years and still today.

No doubt Climate Change is serious, but I believe it is an absolute privilege to live right now on this changing planet. In my imagination I spend time in the future considering all the amazing ways LGBTQ people will respond to the climate crisis. I muse on how we will respond to the needs of LGBTQ youth.

On stage, I continue to explore queer responses to climate change. Also over on my podcast this has become a regular theme. It comes up regularly over dinner or as I travel around on the train or chat online.

I can’t seem to get enough of this topic right now and would love to hear your thoughts.

What are some of your thoughts about LGBTQ people/history/cultures/experience and climate change?

What are some connections you are beginning to see?

Polar Bear Fatigue. Queer Reasons to Address Climate Change?

It’s weird. I’m not an environmentalist, but I am concerned about climate change, and I think it is because I am gay. This may not make any sense to anyone, but I know about people coming up with false science in order to push a political agenda. For years anti-LGBTQ folks have either fabricated or distorted “scholarship” to slander LGBTQ, insist that our feelings and lives are immoral and unnatural, and to try to convince people that Change is Possible.

I can relate to climate change being this offensive thing that a group of people want to ignore, bash, or legislate out of the discussion. And honestly I grow tired of how many environmentalist talk about climate change. I mean some of my best friends are environmentalists. They are passionate and committed. But their arguments of why we should engage in climate action do not motivate me at all. Now talk about coffee as an endangered specie, yeah, you have my attention.

This wakes me up better than a double espresso!

In order to develop other talking points about why we should engage in climate action, I surveyed a bunch of people, asking, Besides the polar bears and future generations, why do you think we should act on climate change? I talked to mostly teenagers but some adults too, and I had some of my favorite characters chime in including my newest character, a British pensioner living in Spain (but she has yet to tell us her name.)

Through the conversations I came up with a very queer reason to act to address climate change, one that may not come to mind to most people right away–the plight of transgender, queer, gender queer, bisexual, lesbian, and gay homeless youth and adults in times of extreme weather events like hurricanes, floods, and heatwaves.

Take a listen to my latest podcast filled with fun characters, great music, and fresh approaches.

Episode 27 of The Stew

Many voices fill my head. Good thing I have a mic to record them all.

Cheryl Dunye, groundbreaking Black lesbian filmmaker

I have been sitting with Autostraddle’s stunning list of 100+ LGBTQ Black Women You Should Know: The Epic Black History Mega Post. I need more than a month to dig into the work and lives and impact of these women, so “Black History Month” is quickly turning into Black History Quarter. Seriously we do not need to contain anyone’s history in any single month. Today I share with you their post about Cheryl Dunye along with some YouTube clips. I think I need to have a Dunye film festival in my living room very soon once I figure out how to get all her films. Enjoy.

From Autostraddle:

Cheryl Dunye is “the lesbian Spike Lee,” according to Newsday, and she’s also “a big fucking deal” according to anybody who knows anything about queer cinema. She’s had an extensive career as a filmmaker and within academia. She’s taught at UCLA, Pomona, The New School, California Institute of the Arts and Temple. She’s also the woman behind the groundbreaking lesbian film The Watermelon Woman, which snagged best feature at film festivals including L.A’s Outfest. She’s released four feature films, won numerous awards and prestigious grants, and seen her work screened at festivals internationally. She’s directed 13 films, including the 2012 epic queer porn flick Mommy is Coming and a story in 2013′s Valencia: The Movie, based on the book by Michelle Tea

Cheryl Dunye’s advice to aspiring filmmakers

Trailer for Watermelon Women

Pat Parker, Black lesbian poet and activist well worth knowing

Autostraddle has a Megapost with over 100 Black LGBTQ women–some well known and others little known. The list is rich with beautiful photos. I am slowly working through the list sitting with one a day, doing Google searches to learn more, watch video to read and hear their words. Over the next few weeks I will share some with you. I start with a poet and activist, Pat Parker (1944-1989) Do check out the video below to hear her voice and powerful words as she speaks of “Perversion”

Everytime we put on the proper
clothes to go to a family
wedding and left our lovers
at home —
It was an act of perversion.

Pat Parker

Parker’s activism included involvement with the Black Panther Movement, contributing to the Women’s Press Collective and serving as medical coordinator for the Oakland Feminist Women’s Health Center. Cheryl Clarke has said of Pat that she articulates “a black lesbian-feminist perspective of love between women and the circumstances that prevent our intimacy and liberation.” She toured with Varied Voices of Black Women, published multiple volumes of poetry, and, in 1980, founded the Black Woman’s Revolutionary Council.

From Pat Parker Wikipedia page: Pat Parker and Audre Lorde first met in 1969 and continued to exchange letters and visits until Parker’s death in 1989. Their collaboration inspired many, including lesbian-feminist blues/R&B singer Nedra Johnson, whose song “Where Will You Be?” has become somewhat of a feminist anthem in the USA.
From Qualia Folk page on Pat Parker:

Parker wrote poems that have been described as having “punch lines,” verses that deliver immediate emotional content. Sometimes the punch line is amusing, as the final verse in “A Small Contradiction,” a poem dealing with a theoretical critique of monogamy:

Me, i am
totally opposed to
monogamous relationships
unless
i’m
in love

Where Will You Be? read by Pat Parker recorded at the Third World Conference sponsored Kick-Off Rally for the 14th October 1979 (first) National March On Washington for LGBTQ Rights. From Queer Radio. See text of poem over at J Spot.

Not Our First Rodeo. LGBTQ people have lessons from history to share

I remember when I first came out and began to read about LGBTQ people in history and literature. It struck me that we are a people with a history who have made a mark on the world. I think every marginalize group finds that empowering, especially when pushed down by the mainstream.

In looking at LGBTQ recent history, it is hard to avoid the HIV/AIDS Crisis. It affected more than just gay men, but so many trans women, queer youth, people of color both in the USA and on the African Continent and the Caribbean. Our ancestors faced a plague in the midst of a government that refused to acknowledge the problem, let alone act. So LGBTQ people acted up.

This week I interview Rev. Nancy Wilson who was on the front lines of the HIV/AIDS Crisis (originally called GRID–Gay Related Immune Deficiency) in Los Angeles. Her short powerful interview reveals much about our resiliency and the lessons we have to share today.

Enjoy: Episode 24 Not Our First Rodeo–HIV/AIDS and Climate Change

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Tag: lesbian

Under the Udala Trees — debunking Biblical “cures” for lesbians and others