Bishop Gene Robinson

At first, I was really disappointed that Bishop Gene Robinson was retiring, which is selfish of me. He’s been in documentaries like “For the Bible Tells Me So,” authored successful books about faith and homosexuality, and paved the way for gay men of faith, especially in leadership positions. I had thought he was the only one, but according to an NPR article from last year, “Mary Glasspool, who is also openly gay, was elected bishop suffragan in the Diocese of Los Angeles.” Admittedly, I have no idea what that means. But knowing that Robinson only considered retirement after finding a successor of sorts made me admire him even more. And “Robinson will be working with the Center for American Progress, a progressive research and policy organization, on issues of faith and gay rights.” So, his retirement was not the gone-forever event it sounded like. His work never ends.
The only time I’ve met Bishop Robinson was at the Creating Change conference of 2013. I had been volunteering with Sean’s Last Wish, an educational anti-violence and LGBT rights outreach organization. His session was popular, and I don’t think I was the only atheist in the room. I had the odd sensation that the Episcopal bishop, a title I wouldn’t know from Catholic priest, was making up for all the damages my experience in a Southern Baptist church as a child had caused. Every atheist and most LGBT people, I think, enter into a phase where religion is to blame for everything. Not literalism or fundamentalism or pure bigotry, but religion itself. Bishop Robinson, in working so hard for the LGBT community of which he is part, could be the answer to bring people of faith and the nonreligious together to fight bigotry. Attacking religion will never achieve what interfaith dialogue (and innerfaith dialogue, as in “For the Bible Tells Me So”) can do. I am so grateful for his contribution to the LGBT community.
                                                                                   ---

For the Bible Tells Me So. Dir. Daniel G. Karslake. Atticus Group, 2007. Film.
Gross, Terry. "Retired Bishop Gene Robinson On Being Gay And Loving God." National Public Radio.
                 N.p., 10 Jan. 2013. Web. 13 Apr. 2014.

Abortion as Humanitarian Aid

     The National Right to Life Committee just ousted one of its strongest affiliates, Georgia Right to Life, because the Georgia group refused to support an anti-abortion bill in Congress with exceptions for rape and incest. The primary cause for the schism seems to be a fundamental disagreement about the goals of the pro-life movement—the national group says it wants to eliminate abortion access completely, just like the state affiliate. But “prevailing political winds,” as Dan Becker of Georgia Right to Life calls them, would prevent any anti-abortion bills from proceeding without exceptions. "An overwhelming majority believes abortion should be allowed for rape," David O'Steen, executive director of National Right to Life wrote. According to the AP story, “at least 70 percent of Americans support such access, and less than 25 percent oppose it.”

     Despite this overwhelming majority, Congress still prohibits U.S. foreign aid from subsidizing abortions as family planning. That’s why a coalition of feminist groups and humanitarian organizations like Doctors Without Borders, are urging the president to sign an executive order. According to the Global Justice Center, “thousands of woman have been impregnated by rapists during recent conflicts in Rwanda, Bosnia, Congo, Syria and elsewhere, and yet most major international humanitarian organization balk at offering abortions for fear of jeopardizing their U.S. funding.” Though abortion access is thought of as a domestic issue, its foreign policy aspect is coming into focus, and its lack of attention may be the most dire feminist issue of our time.

  Ellen Willis contends that even domestic anti-abortion rhetoric is not about personal responsibility, or abstinence, as pro-lifers claim. “When all the cant about ‘responsibility’ is stripped away…if the effect of prohibiting abortion is to keep women slaves to their biology, then so be it.” Truly, the comments section of that article speaks wonders to her point—When rape is used as a weapon of war, and unwilling and/or undeveloped women and girls are the victims, opponents of abortion access for them transfer their feelings on a not-yet sentient fetus, and ignore the emotional and physical danger faced by the women and girls. It becomes their punishment simply by having their anatomy. When women are impregnated by willingly having sex, people say it’s their fault, as if women have sole responsibility because of their anatomy. When it’s in a case like war, no one explicitly blames the women, but they consider it an unfortunate result of their body parts, as if that’s all they’re worth.

CRARY, DAVID. "Abortion in Cases of Rape: New Rifts in Old Debate." AP Online. Associated Press,
               12 Apr. 2014. Web. 13 Apr. 2014.
Willis, Ellen. "Abortion: Is a Woman a Person?" Women: Images and Realities: A Multicultural
                Anthology. By Amy Vita Kesselman, Lily D. McNair, and Nancy Schniedewind. 9th ed.      
              Mountain View, CA: Mayfield Pub., 1995. 348-51. Print

Colorblindness: Dangerous Delusions of Post-Racial America

           Early January 2014 introduced the social justice community of Twitter to GreenLiberation, an environmentalist who claimed greenness as her race, rejecting race altogether. In 2005, Morgan Freeman claimed that the solution to racism was to “stop talking about it.” One would be hesitant to describe these two comments as racist, because most people seem to define racism simply as a dislike of a person based on skin color. Gloria Yamato defines four forms of racism: “aware/blatant racism, aware/covert racism, unaware/unintentional racism, and unaware/self-righteous racism.” She challenges the idea that racism is only personal, describing social and institutional racism embedded in society. She would likely classify GreenLiberation an unaware/unintentional racist, though further tweets reveal self-righteousness. Freeman would be told he has class privilege that shields him from everyday racism. Racism, Yamato says, can be internalized, which explains why many people of color like CNN’s Don Lemon employ respectability politics, the idea that if only black people would act a certain way, they would experience no racism. This is the most dangerous manifestation of ‘colorblindness,’ because when most Americans believe we are post-racial or employ respectability politics, loud music or a hoodie is justification for murder. Racial implications of Stand Your Ground laws and voter ID laws are ignored.
            Colorblindness and post-racial thinking lead to respectability politics, then victim blaming. Victims are young black men, branded with hypermasculinity/violence. Black women experience unique misogyny, called misogynoir. There’s the stereotype of black female hypersexuality, and the sexualization of young black girls, evidenced by the hashtag #FastTailedGirls. One of its creators, Mikki Kendall, was called “divisive” by the feminist community because she spoke out when women of color were ignored by mainstream feminists. Since there is no blanket ‘female experience,’ there can be no uniform feminism. Feminists must unite against racism, classism, homophobia/transphobia, all oppression.

YES: "Saying you're colorblind only means you're privileged enough to ignore racism."

This became a pretty funny meme, but colorblindness is truly dangerous.

  

Racism certainly still exists, and here we see it blended with classism

Yamato, Gloria. "Something About the Subject Makes It Hard to Name." Race, Class, and Gender: An          Anthology. By Margaret L. Andersen and Patricia Hill Collins. 5th ed. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 1995. 99-103. Print.

Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminists and Conservatives: Ideological Cousins

  The term 'radical' tends to make people think “opposite of conservative,” especially with the generally pro-choice and pro-homosexual stance of radical feminists. But TERFS, Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminists, share with conservatives a view called biological essentialism. They believe that gender assigned at birth is unchangeable, that a woman is reducible to parts. Apparently petty infighting between feminists is really a battle for transgender people's basic rights, undermined by radical feminists, who affect legislation. As Tina Vasquez points out in her Bitch Media article, "It's Time to End the Long History of Feminism Failing Transgender Women," transphobic feminists occupy influential positions as lawyers or professors. Cathy Brennan is the most well-known "TERF.” When someone shows disapproval of her politics, she makes an attempt to showcase them on her websites, like Gender Identity Watch, or dox (out) them to their family or employer, misgendering them throughout. She holds the unfounded view that transgender individuals are actually perpetrators of violence in restrooms or that violent cisgender men scheme to invade female spaces through drag. 

 In the book Gender Outlaw by Kate Bornstein, an entire chapter is devoted to Gender Defenders, those defenders of the current gender system. She suggests that even if transwomen do bring male privilege into women's spaces, the issue is the male privilege, not the transgender community. 

  Though they aim to abolish gender, TERFS cling to the idea that a penis equals man, which equals oppression. TERFS don’t see the irony in wanting to eliminate society’s rules about their bodies (like wearing makeup) but adamantly defend discrimination based on trans* bodies. They only recognize "women born women," a nonsensical identifier, since infants are essentially genderless before socialization, and since all women have different gender experiences anyway. Smashing the patriarchy involves divorcing biological essentialism and regarding gender as an identity.

Bornstein, Kate. "Gender Terror, Gender Rage." Gender Outlaw. S.l.: Vintage, 1994. 72-85. Print.
Vasquez, Tina. "It's Time to End the Long History of Feminism Failing Transgender Women." Bitch Magazine. Bitch Media, 17 Feb. 2014. Web. 18 Feb. 2014.