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It really caused me great consternation when I heard the story of Andrea Jones on WATE channel 6 last night. Jones had visited her local Tennessee driver’s license office to attempt to have the gender marker on her driver’s license changed from “M” to “F”.

Of course, she was refused.

From the WATE report:

The rules regarding change of gender marker are dictated by the Tennessee Department of Safety. They will change the sex on a license “if an applicant presents a doctor’s statement indicating that a full sex change has occurred and the procedure is complete.”

This overlooks the fact that many transsexuals do not have sex reassignment surgery (SRS). The greatest impediment is cost. Few people have $14,000 – 20,000 available in disposable income to fund such surgery. Instead, many transsexuals opt for surgeries that are less expensive but actually enhance their ability to “pass” in their true gender, like breast augmentation. There are also many transsexuals that do not feel the need to have SRS. They have found happiness and contentment in living as their true gender and do not believe that additional surgery will improve their happiness.

This state requirement is at odds with the  federal government. Under federal guidelines, Ms. Jones is considered female by the Social Security Administration and by the State Department.

Further complicating this issue is that Tennessee is the only state in the United States of America that has passed a law, T.C.A. §68-3-203 (d),  which explicitly forbids changing the sex on a birth certificate: “The sex of an individual shall not be changed on the original certificate of birth as a result of sex change surgery.”

So for all legal purposes, Ms. Jones is considered a man by the State of Tennessee. Further insulting her humanity, the officers involved in her arrest referred to her as “Mr. Jones” as demonstrated in the following statement to WATE, ”Mr. Jones continued to yell that he had the right to show his breasts in public and wanted to be recognized as a female.”

Andrea had a well intentioned point to make. If the state will only recognize her as a man, then she should have every right to bare her chest like every other over-weight, cigarette smokin’, tobacco spittin’, shit farmin’ redneck in Morristown does. She argues that the state cannot have it both ways.

However, the State, at least in Morristown, lacks the gift of deductive logic. She was immediately arrested for indecent exposure which carries the possibility lifetime inclusion in the National Sex Offender Registry, jail time, fines, and probation.

Andrea was incarcerated for 21 days in the Morristown City Jail – as a male. She was pressured, badgered, and coerced every day to confess to committing indecent exposure and plead guilty with only a two day sentence. She refused. “I’m stubborn,” she told me on the telephone. In truth, she says that she could not stand the thought of serving time without something positive coming out of it. She wanted her day in court. Indeed she will have it. her hearing is set for December 20th and I’d like to pack the courtroom with her supporters.

Because of her incarceration, she lost her job. She was employed at American Book Company through LaborReady for over a year. As a temporary contract worker, she was recently assigned responsibility for a production line. Even so, things weren’t always rosy at work. She’d been denied restroom use because she is transsexual, but ironically, required to wear a bra – again, the double standard. (I have sent a message to company president, Pat O’Connor and am currently awaiting his response.)

It was a rough week for her too. Just prior to the arrest, she lost her grandfather.

Andrea wants to see this through. She believes she did nothing wrong and I agree with her. With both agree, it is about time that this shit stop. Leaving people in a genderless legal limbo does nothing but complicate their lives.

From our conversations, I truly believe Andrea is a good person with a good heart, but she just had enough. She lives in the Dandridge area and desperately needs a job. She currently walks wherever she needs to go, sometimes up to 10 miles. If you say anything about her, you cannot say that she is a quitter. She is determined. If ANYONE that reads this has a contact in the Dandridge area that would hire this young woman, PLEASE LET ME KNOW ASAP!

If any of you read my blog, you know that when I get behind a cause, I give all the effort that I can. Further, after raising money for the Stutte family, raising money for an insulin pump, and raising money for Duanna Johnson’s funeral expenses, I hope you all know that I’m a good steward of your money.

Andrea has asked for nothing and expects nothing. However, I know it has to be tough trying to rebuild your life after losing your grandfather, losing your job and then being imprisoned for almost a month. This girl needs a break. I think our community can afford to help her get one. Please donate using the ChipIn widget on my sidebar (Donations now closed).

Click to Play

I am really blown away by what happened in the last 24 hours.

“Stop making fun of transgender people in your advertising.Even since the Stonewall Riots in 1969, transgender people have been fighting a losing battle to gain acceptance and equality in our country. Our progress is hampered time and time again by misinformation and mischaracterization by politicians, many religious groups, and the media.Because of this, I find it offensive and reckless for General Mills to portray a non-female identified cross dresser as a punchline in their new “Totino’s Pizza Stuffers Mom Auditions: Group “B”" video on YouTube.

As states and municipalities labor to implement Gender Identity/Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Ordinances to prevent transgender people from being turned away from housing, employment, and public accommodations, time and time again the argument against devolves into “men in a dress using the women’s bathroom”. Transgender people are demonized and vilified as perverts, mentally unstable, and worse, pedophiles.

On November 20 each year, the transgender community and their allies remember all of the transgender people that have fallen victim to murder because of public fears and stereotypes propagated by ill-conceived rhetoric and ads such as this. Countless more are brutalized.

General Mills, please understand that transgender people can no longer be the punchline. No one is dying laughing – they’re just dying and you’re helping.”

“We’ve received the petitions you started through Change.org, and we thank you for reaching out. Our intention was not to be insensitive with the Totino’s video, but it’s clear this missed the mark. In short, we agree and we apologize. Please know that we took immediate action. We have removed the video from our YouTube channel and are in the process of removing it from other blogs and websites. 

Please continue to share your thoughts. We do value them. 

Sincerely, 

Aaron Miller 

General Mills Brand PR”

Click to Play

To me, this iconic commercial has always embodied the spirit of innovation and genius of the human spirit. It always reminded me that there are others that have been on this planet that we can aspire to be like. This commercial should probably be updated to include Steve Jobs.

“Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.”

Here’s to the Crazy Ones…

“] 

Rest in Peace
Steve Jobs
1955-2011

In August, former Democratic Senator Blanche Lincoln, proposed that regulations can be harmful to businesses. The EPA recently announced a new ground level ozone standard which Lincoln claims, “…will yield a relatively small benefit when compared to the $19 billion to $90 billion that the rule is expected to cost the economy”.

Sidney A. Shapiro, University Distinguished Chair in Law, Wake Forest University School of Law, points out that the report, ”The Impact of Regulatory Costs on Small Firms”, on which most regulatory critisms are based, as is Lincoln’s, is one-sided and flawed. In his study, “Setting the Record Straight: The Crain and Crain Report on Regulatory Costs”, he points out that Crain and Crain used only the cost of regulation without calculating the returned financial benefit. Further, they continue to without much of the methodology used to produce their figures.

Richard Revesz, Dean, New York University School of Law, also disputes the belief of economic harm  and states, “Americans gain more than a trillion dollars in economic benefits every year thanks to the Clean Air Act. If attempts to slow down or roll back these protections are successful, American families will lose huge amounts of value in return for a paltry donation to the industries that generate dangerous pollutants. Without these public health protections, corporate shareholders may face slightly lower compliance costs, but the American public will pick up a hefty tab.”

Susan Dudley, the former White House regulatory chief under President George W. Bush, suggests that the real metric of a regulation is not how many jobs a regulation creates, but rather the benefit to the public good when compared to the cost to implement. She offers an amusing example which seems to echo the belief of most anti-regulation supporters, “It would be easy to think of a regulation that ‘created jobs’ that didn’t benefit society…[such as] requiring that all construction be done with a teaspoon.”

Interestingly enough, while 2012 presidential candidates continue to hammer on existing regulations necessary burdens to industry and as job killers to appease their ever more radical Tea Party supporters, the economy and job creation are not the issues that the Tea Party has with the EPA. Instead, they believe that the EPA enacts regulatory “legislation” without congressional approval on each specific item, thereby wielding authority not granted to them by the constitution, a view that is inline with their strict constitutionalist views. So while the Tea Party leaders may hold this belief, their rabid followers have been caught up in the wake of election rhetoric and have embraced destruction of the EPA has a cure to the country’s economic woes.

Concerning the implementation of stricter smog standards, “Continued delay costs the nation between 4,000 and 12,000 lives; 58,000 asthma attacks; and 21,000 hospital and emergency room visits annually. With lives at stake, can we really afford to let polluters continue to have their way?”, notes Peter Iwanowicz, Assistant Vice President with the American Lung Association.

Experts agree that removing regulation will not bolster the economy, but will, in fact, decrease public health which is far more detrimental to our fragile economy. Realistically, breathing dirty air or drinking dirtier water would cause more Americans to seek medical attention. In these difficult economic times, the cost will be shifted from the factory that doesn’t want to implement regulations which make the public healthier to the taxpayer that will have to bear the burden of that additional cost of people seeking medical care without adequate insurance.

Of course, not if Tea Party supporters can help it. If they had their way, the American public would pick up no additional cost, but rather just, “let ‘em die”.

Attempt on the Life of Eugene Delguadio

Note, that an exhaustive search of online news and blogs, not one mention of an attack has made it to the police or news. This further bolsters my statement, “Eugene Delgaudio, you’re so full of shit.”

In 2007, my partner, Jaime, and I first headed to Dragon*Con in Atlanta after some friends convinced us to come along. A life long sci-fi nut, I couldn’t pass up this opportunity. I didn’t really know what to expect and I have found that no expectation can prepare you for four complete 24 hour days of non-stop partying, gaming, learning, discussing, film watching, hanging out, costuming, shopping, dancing, and chilling with 40,000 of your closest friends. In my opinion, however, the coolest feature of Dragon*Con is acceptance.

After having been together for four years, never before had Jaime and I held hands in public. However, here, among thousands upon thousands of nerds, geeks, and social outcasts, we could no longer rationalize walking down the street, side by side, without holding one another. It felt really nice.

That “bravery” did not immediately translate to our life here in East Tennessee, but slowly, we were able to walk through the mall or other public places like any other couple. Why not? We love each other and personal human relationships really cannot exist without physical contact. Why should others be able to express their feelings while we cannot? Sometimes the indignant looks of disgust from others were almost intolerable.

Sometimes you have to be brave, but you should not have to be brave to be yourself. Ideally, you should naturally project who you are to the rest of the world. I am sure that is how Olivier Odom felt when she donned her “marriage is so gay” t-shirt before heading off to Dollywood Splash Country with her partner, Jennifer Tipton, and their friends. She wasn’t trying to make a point, she was just wearing a cool shirt. Little did she know, or even expect, that she would be required to turn her shirt inside-out or be ejected from the popular water park because she was entering a “family” establishment – nevermind that she was with her own family. My gut tells me that had the employee that made this demand been gay, no such demand would have occurred. Further, on that same day, I am fairly certain there was no short supply of rebel flag and Bud Light beach towels.

What I found most disturbing, is not that Olivier’s t-shirt did not meet with the subjective guidelines of the park’s dress code, but rather the public’s reaction to story. How many times did I read, “..shoving their perverted lifestyle down my throat…”, “…gays just want to be in everyone’s face…”, or “…Dollywood is no place for lesbian grab-assing…”. The most hurtful comments, however, came from the gay community itself, claiming that people like Olivier and Jennifer are giving the gay community a bad name. Here is some advice for you if you are gay and another LGBT person brings attention to an injustice, no matter how slight and you disagree: keep your mouth shut. There are plenty of bigots doing their job. They do not need your help.

Oh, why can’t real life be like Star Trek? I mean, what would Kirk do? He would kick ass and take names. Sometimes, that is what the world truly needs.

The only difference I have noticed as I get older is that my muscles hurt a little more the next day when I try to do something strenuous like walk to the refrigerator too briskly. Supposedly, I’m having to cover a few more gray hairs, but as often as I get my hair colored, I’ll never know. It has gotten easier to gain weight and harder to lose it. Mostly, I have noticed I have less and less tolerance for bullshit.

I still get carded when I buy beer, but now they do it because it is required where before a server would card me because I looked too young to drink. It also seems that I’ll have a couple of drinks because I’m thirsty and like the taste more so than the desire to get blitzed. It takes too many to get that way now. I’m too cheap and I’m not that thirsty.

I go to the doctor a lot more than I used to: swollen ankles, urinary tract infection, colonoscopy, pulled hamstring from water skiing, piles (it’s an archaic term – look it up), and fatigue.

So I guess this is all the result of my telomeres getting shorter and shorter. To combat this chromosomal damage, I’m supposed to eat more fruits and vegetables, stay out of the sun (and tanning bed), drink water, and limit my exposure to toxic substances.

What makes this aging process even more irritating is that I have to do it here in Tennessee which is quickly becoming the defacto world standard for hatred and intolerance against LGBT people. Soon, they are going to try and outlaw us all together – a “Closed Closet” law.

On the bright side, I can see things getting a little better. Just the other day, the Department of Justice filed a brief in the Golinski case taking the position that the Defense of Marriage Act was unconstitutional and yesterday, the 9th District Court of Appeals ordered the federal government to immediately cease enforcement of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.

Here in Tennessee, a lawsuit has been filed to overturn the new law which prevents local communities and schools from protecting LGBT employees and students. Support for the Tennessee LGBT community is growing because of Representative Casada and Senator Campfield and for the first time ever, Knoxville PrideFest attracted the largest number of attendees of any free Pride festival in the state – a reported 7000 people.

So between now and next July 1st, when I turn 41, I’ve got to learn to engage more people in the fight for civil rights, take better care of my aging body, make more time for my family, and teach my partner and the love of my life, Jaime, how to clean the bathroom, wash dishes, and teach her what this concept called “outside” is. (Jaime is only aware of indoors and that brief walk to the car. Of course, she is going to kill me or seriously hurt me for this comment.)

We didn’t make it to his party. I could have never foreseen what would transpire that Sunday morning.

Jaime and I had found a new church home. We were very happy to be among other enlightened people. Their kindness and giving was sincere. Their quest for social justice was pure and unselfish. I looked forward to hearing Rev. Chris Buice offer his sermon each Sunday. For one thing, the guy always made me laugh. He also had a unique way of presenting the obstacles of the world and offering reasonable and creative solutions to facing those obstacles. Chris was away on vacation, and the youth were presenting the play “Annie” instead of their normal service. Jaime was interested; I was kind of iffy.

I’m perpetually late for everything. Wouldn’t you know it, we were late that Sunday too. We parked at the 2nd Presbyterian Church parking lot, and walked in the rear door to the church breezeway. Jaime says as we entered, a man was entering in the front door of the breezeway. As we came together to enter the sanctuary, I barely paid him notice. Jaime didn’t recognize him, but carrying a guitar case, she thought he would be one of the performers in the play.

We normally entered the sanctuary on the right. As we started to enter, we were stopped by Daddy Warbucks. He and other characters were lining up on the right to enter the sanctuary and he asked the we go to the left side and wait for a break to enter. I’m kind of hard of hearing and didn’t quite understand him. When he repeated himself I thought him to be quite rude. We moved to the left side waiting to enter. I was kind of miffed and seriously considered leaving, however, the scene that was playing really impressed me and I remember smiling and thinking what a great job these kids were doing. So much can change so quickly…

Rather than re-hash the events of three years ago, I’ll let you read my details of the events from three years ago. It was published in the Nashville’s Out & About Newspaper. I don’t know why, or how it even got there. I just remember that someone suggested I write down what happened while it was still fresh in my mind. I can’t read it now, nor do I want to. There was also a follow-up interview on the Michelangelo Signorile show. I don’t interview well, but the video is below.

http://www.outandaboutnewspaper.com/article/2814

Jaime and I were running late to church Sunday morning.  This is usual – it’s always me that takes too long.  Driving to TVUUC, I was wondering if I really wanted to go.  I really like the “sermons” or “lectures” about society or philosophy but this was going to be a children’s musical program and I just didn’t know if it was for me.

The breezeway of the church has an opening in the middle that leads to a foyer for the sanctuary.  The entrance is split.  You can enter through double-doors to the right to or to the left.  The sun was especially bright so Jaime and I decided to go to the left side.  We started to walk in as the production was underway and was quickly pulled back by John Bohstedt, who looked very much like Daddy Warbucks.

We were asked to stand by the door and to seat ourselves after the first act.  I’m hard of hearing and Jaime and I walked to the main foyer door.  He motioned us back.  As we walked back to the sanctuary, I saw someone walk behind me.  My mind keeps telling me it was the shooter, but I didn’t give a second look.

The Annie character was just finishing “Maybe”.  I was thinking, “this is really good.”  The Miss Hannigan character walked in stage left and slapped a basket Annie was holding out of her hand.  From the sanctuary right entrance, I thought I hear yelling and a loud BOOM of an explosion.

My mind tried to register the sound.  I was thinking, “Did a speaker explode?  Did I hear a prop gun?  Did something go wrong?” and as soon as that thought left my mind I smelled the sulfur from the gunpowder and heard another BOOM and then BOOM.  I left go of Jaime’s hand and stepped around the corner just as John Bohstedt tackled the shooter.  Immediately two others were on top of him.

As he hit the ground shotgun shells went everywhere.  The gun landed upside down against a bag or some other object on the floor.  There was a shell halfway in the ejection port.  It didn’t look spent.  He must have been trying to shove a shell straight into the chamber to take another shot.

It seemed like an eternity, but it was only a few seconds.  Jaime and I were grabbed by several church members and pulled into a room.  I opened the door to look out and someone yelled at me to get on the floor.  I couldn’t.  I grabbed Jaime’s hand and we went through the foyer and out the back door.

In the minutes leading up to when the police arrived Jaime and I saw children with escorts looking for their parents.  We saw children and adults with blood on their clothes.  We saw the worst side of human cruelty we had ever seen.  We knew people had been shot but we didn’t know who.

We eventually gathered with the rest of the church family on a hill behind the sanctuary.  Most of the children were in safe hands at the Second Presbyterian Church next door.  While we were congregated together I noticed our friend.  She is a transgender youth.  She told us that Greg, her foster father, had been hit.  That really hit home.

Just two weeks earlier Greg McKendry and his wife Barbara and their trans-foster child were at our home celebrating Jaime’s birthday.  I really liked Greg and to think someone could hurt him was very troubling.

The police gathered everyone together in the fellowship hall to tell us what to expect.  The police identified the types of witnesses they wanted and eventually dismissed everyone.  As Jaime and I stood by the door, Barbara McKendry came walking by.  She stopped to give both of us a hug and said, “Greg got hit.  He’s dead.”

Oh God!  My heart just broke and Jaime and I couldn’t hold it together anymore.  How could this happen to group of people as loving as the members of TVUUC?  I needed an answer.  I had to know why.

Today, we found out why when some of the contents of the killer’s letter were revealed.  A supposed hatred for the liberal establishment and “gays”.  Yes, TVUUC, embraced gays and the entire GLBT community.  Jaime is the president of PFLAG which meets at TVUUC, and a group of local transgender people and I had just started a new organization which meets at TVUUC.  As a matter of fact, Jaime and I met at TVUUC in October 1999, at a transgender support group at TVUUC.

This church has always loved everyone in the community and would turn their back on no one.  Jaime and I hope that this resolves quickly so that we can get back to rebuilding lives and rebuilding our church’s spirit.

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I still remember visiting my grandfather’s house on February 18, 1977 and watching the first Shuttle Enterprise land at Edwards Air Force base after being dropped from a Boeing 747 to test its approach and landing capabilities. As a six year old, this single event changed my aspirations forever. It’s kind of funny. As a small child, my mother recorded “What I want to be when I grow up” every year in a little book with my report cards. Each year it had the same occupation: “baseball player”. However, starting in 1977 that changed to “astronaut”.

Shuttle Enterprise Separation

Shuttle Enterprise Landing

I immersed myself in math and science. Relying on an old encyclopedia set, some magazines at the library like OMNI, and specials on PBS, I absorbed everything I could about space travel. A few years later, I realized that today’s astronauts weren’t pilots, but rather scientists. If you wanted to command a shuttle mission you had to be a specialist. This kind of meshed nicely with my computer programming hobby. Surely, I could use my skills in some way to get into the space program.

My friends and classmates knew what a space buff I was, so on January 28, 1986, I thought it was a cruel joke my friends were playing on me as they each approached me to tell me the Shuttle Challenger had exploded on takeoff. I wouldn’t believe it. When I got home, I turned on the news and wept.

Later in 1986, I had fledgling idea for a program. I wanted to consolidate the information about our solar system into a graphical computer program. Up to that point, almost all programs were text based, with the exception of video games. The graphic operating system had been making its way through the industry with Xerox, then Apple Lisa, Apple Macintosh, the AtariST, and finally the Amiga. However, I had only been able to catch a glimpse of this mouse-cursor environment on television. I figured I could make my own GUI (Graphic User Interface).

At the time I had been playing around with machine language. There was no resource for learning to program a Commodore 64 in machine language in Arkansas, but I was able to find a book called, How To Program Your Atari In 6502 Machine Language. With that book and Compute! magazine, I was able to write my own machine language editor. Using an op-code sheet as a reference I set about creating my master program.

There were several limitations to overcome. The Commodore had two modes: text and graphics. In text mode, you couldn’t display graphics and in graphics mode, you couldn’t display text. Since graphics were key to my program, I would have to display text as a graphic. The only way I could see to do this was to draw out each character on graph paper and convert to an 8 bit hex value. This would have taken years. So instead, I converted the alphabet to graphics. I then wrote a word processor that would convert my text into graphics using the converted alphabet.

I don’t remember what the video resolution on the Commodore 64 was. That was a long time ago. I do remember that I wanted to allow the user to select from a list of planets using their joystick to move an arrow. Once a planet was selected, a graphic of the planet would display in a section and encyclopedic description would follow in a scrollable text box. In addition, a list of the planets moons would display. Selecting a moon would allow you to see a graphic of the moon and it’s accompanying information.

Having no graphic editor, I had to sketch all these celestial bodies by hand onto graph paper. I also had to overcome another limitation. The graphics system on a Commodore 64 would only allow two colors inside each 8 pixel by 8 pixel square. After these sketches were roughed out and then colored in, I had the task of converting each pixel into a hex code to manually input into my developing program.

Because the Commodore 64 only had very limited memory, I couldn’t cram everything into the program, so each celestial body was stored as a file object on a floppy disk. When an item was selected, the program would find the object on the disk and load it into memory. For it’s time, it was very impressive – and it was fast!

The whole project took me eight months to write.

I entered it into the school science fair and won overall. I then went to the regional science fair and once again, won overall. At the state science fair, I placed 3rd in the Computer Science division, but still – I was very proud of myself. Since that time, I don’t believe I have ever eclipsed that accomplishment nor have I ever had that dedication again. The awards were numerous:

While it may seem I have gotten off track, let me tie this all together. The award that I am most proud of is the NASA award. With it came special benefits. I was able to attend Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, AL with other winners from around the United States where NASA gave us a back door tour of all of their operations and supposedly introduced us to some projects unseen by the public. This is also where Space Camp was in its infancy and my heart sank to know that my parents would never be able to afford to send me.

In addition, I was given a letter by NASA which entitled me to entry to see any shuttle launch if and when the shuttle program resumed. I can’t find that letter now. I would look at it from time to time wondering if the shuttle program would ever start back up. As the years rolled by I kept telling myself, “I’ll take make kids to see a shuttle launch”. One year turned into ten and ten years turned into 20. I never was “well off” and there always seemed to be something financially pressing keeping me from arranging a trip to Cape Canaveral.

I kind of pissed away my future many, many years ago. I think back to when I was told I could be anything I want to be when I grow up. It’s true. You can. However, you have to make it happen. However, for our youth that still believe in the impossible and have unlimited imaginations, I fear that with the termination of the shuttle program that the spark that fueled so many dreams will be extinguished. I hope our country quickly finds its footing again, that our people yearn for discovery and aim for the stars.