Category: boy scouts

Candis Cayne on "Tranny;" Eric Holder on Boy Scouts; Rugby Player Banned

Candis Cayne on “Tranny”

Another performer associated with RuPaul’s Drag Race who is hocking a movie has come out publicly in support of the word “Tranny.” Candis Cayne doesn’t think there’s anything transphobic about that word and she believes that only a few people don’t like certain words.

“There’s no transphobic anything [on Drag Race],” the actress stated flatly during a recent telephone interview promoting her new film Crazy Bitches, which debuts June 26 at San Francisco’s Frameline Film Festival. In fact, rather than towing the trans-party line, Cayne seemed frustrated by those lobbing the accusations.

“There’s a group of people who don’t like certain words,” said Cayne, who plays one of seven sorority sisters systematically murdered in the upcoming indie horror flick. “And now everyone has to change their lives around it.”

There’s an interesting comment at the beginning of this article that states Candis Cayne seems to think she’s the unofficial spokesperson for “all things trans.” I know many who would disagree with that. As far as I know there are no spokespeople, officially or unofficially, for any part of the LGBTI community. I know one thing for certain NO ONE speaks for me. I can do that on my own, thank you.

Cayne is also hocking a movie titled, Crazy Bitches. I wonder how the feminist community feels about the word “bitches.” Notice how no one even mentions that in the article.

Here are a few previous posts I’ve written about the “tranny” word in case you haven’t been following this debate. It doesn’t seem to want to go away, and there are obvious reasons for that.

You can read more here. Personally, I don’t use the word. And I never did use it, not even before the debate started. I think all words are important and the odds are I wouldn’t be hanging around people who do use it. And I’m far from being an activist. (Unfortunately, Cayne doesn’t seem to understand that without activists there wouldn’t even be a RuPaul’s Drag Race.)

The most important part of this article is that Cayne seems to flip flop on the topic. She doesn’t use the word herself, but doesn’t see anything wrong with using the word. It’s actually hard to figure out WTF she’s saying.

Eric Holder on Boy Scouts

Speaking of bad stereotypes, Attorney General Eric Holder openly stated that he thinks the Boy Scout ban on gay adult leaders promotes the worst gay stereotypes.

“It’s a relic of an age of prejudice and insufficient understanding,” the attorney general said Tuesday evening to Lambda Legal, an advocacy group for LGBT rights.

Referring to the group’s work a decade ago to challenge the termination of a gay assistant scoutmaster, Holder said that “too many organizations, policies and practices that discriminate against LGBT individuals remain persistent concerns.”

Unlike the vapid comments from Candis Cayne, Holder’s comments not only ring true, but they help give more credibility and relevance to what’s been happening with the Boy Scouts and how they’ve been treating the LGBTI community. He made these comments to Lambda Legal, advocates of gay rights.

You can read more about this here in USA Today. This time it made mainstream headlines.

Rugby Player Banned

A rugby player, Zak Hardaker, was banned for calling another player a “fucking faggot.” He was banned for obvious reasons listed in the article, including ‘verbal abuse based on race, color, religion, gender, sexual preference, national or ethnic origin.’ However, he seems to think he was the one being abused and he tweeted this:

‘Thankyou everyone for ur support, 5 games it is,’ Hardaker tweeted. ‘You live and learn and that’s life, so I’ll just make sure I come out better for it.’

What’s most interesting here is that he claims he’s not homophobic.  His coach even defended him, mentioning the ways they support gays in this rugby club, and how remorseful Hardaker is. They don’t think of this as homophobia. The phrase “fucking faggot” is just offensive language to them.

Which actually brings me right back to the tranny word, which I’m sure is just as offensive to transgender people as the phrase “fucking faggot” is to almost all LGBTI people.

You can read more about Hardaker here. I actually don’t think he’s homophobic, not in a literal hateful sense. I just don’t think he knows any better and I hope he does come out better for it. His coach sounds like a lost cause.

 
 
Chase of a Lifetime by Ryan Field
 
 
 
 


RuPaul’s Transphobic? Modern Family is Poison? Boy Scouts Fire Troop Leader

RuPaul’s Transphobic?

Update Below

There are so many new politically correct words, terms, and phrases these days that when I key in words like transphobic I get a spell-check alert on some devices and not on others. Even computers are confused. And I think this article that talks about RuPaul’s TV show coming under fire for using “transphobic” terms is a good example of the way many of us wonder whether or not we’re using the right terms these days. Even the most innocent slip-up, never meant to harm anyone, seems to get the most aggressive zealots on the fringes of society up in arms and I think a lot of us are getting tired of dealing with it. In this particular case, the terms “Female of She-Male” were used on RuPaul’s Drag Race and RuPaul has issued a statement in defense.

“We delight in celebrating every color in the LGBT rainbow,” RuPaul Charles, Fenton Bailey, Randy Barbato, Tom Campbell, Steven Corfe and Mandy Salangsang said in the statement. “When it comes to the movement of our trans sisters and trans brothers, we are newly sensitized and more committed than ever to help spread love, acceptance and understanding.”

I think the key word in RuPaul’s statement is “sensitized.” I’ve posted about drag culture in the past several times and how the word “tranny” often comes under fire. I don’t use it, but it’s actually very common in some places with LGBTI people. This could be generational. It could be many things. And until we all understand which terms and phrases are correct I think the zealots should back up a little and try to educate us instead of slam us. No one’s perfect. And intent is always the most important factor with anything like this.

You can read more here.

Modern Family is Poison?

I’ve always had the feeling it would only be a matter of time before TV show, Modern Family, came under fire. Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association is making claims now that the show is “poison” and it gives convoluted impressions of what he thinks family life should be all about.

Modern Family,” Fischer said, is “designed to make you think that same-sex households are wonderful” and “the optimum nurturing environment for children,” which depicting heterosexual marriage as “bondage, dreary,” and “gloomy.”

I’ve only watched Modern Family a few times, and I never thought it portrayed heterosexual marriage as dreary. In fact, the main reason I don’t watch is because I often think they make gay marriage look too heternormative in a stereotypical way. But I don’t think that’s poisonous.

Fischer also said this:

Watching the show, he added, was “like getting a little bit of poison over a long period of time, eventually getting enough accumulation in there where it can be kind of lethal to the organism.”

He then concluded, “People are just watching TV to be entertained, not realizing that their view of life is being twisted in a way that’s very harmful to them and harmful to our culture.”

Now that’s an interesting spin on something harmless. Last I heard Modern Family wasn’t forcing an agenda on anyone. What they’re doing is portraying the way thousands of gay married couples are living right now, and have been living for a long time. I know Tony and I didn’t need Modern Family to teach us how to be a gay married couple. In fact, there are a few things I could teach Modern Family.

Fischer needs to rethink this argument a little more, and learn more about gay people and gay marriages. He doesn’t sound credible. He’s also highly underestimating the viewing public and not giving them enough credit.

You can read more here.

Boy Scouts Fire Troop Leader

Update: Here’s another article on this topic I found interesting because I still don’t feel as if I have the entire story. It sounds as if the troop leader was fired because he was gay (if he was that’s just wrong), however, if you read between the lines it doesn’t all parse. Was he fired because he was gay or because he couldn’t keep his political activism separate from the scouts? I think there should be a distinction clearly made.

This is one of those things that makes me wonder. The article seems to be saying that openly gay troop leader, Geoff McGrath, was fired because he’s gay and was promoting the “gay agenda.” It also goes on to mention that McGrath took his troop to a gay pride last June and they marched, carried flags, and promoted the scouts at gay pride. They allegedly fired McGrath because they didn’t think this was appropriate…that he mixed his politics in with the scouts.

McGrath, who is a software developer by day, said: ‘They are complaining that the problem [his homosexuality] is a distraction to Scouting and they don’t seem to understand the distraction is self-inflicted’.

 Officials said they did not ask the scout leader about his sexuality when he applied to set up the new troop, known as Troop 98, because it is against their policy, but said they took action once they found out.

‘It was then that we became aware of his intentions to make a public statement about his orientation and use our program as a means to further a personal agenda,’ Sharon Moulds, from the BSA, said in an email.

Deron Smith, another spokesman for BSA, added: ‘Our policy is that we do not ask people about their sexual orientation, and it’s not an issue until they deliberately inject it into scouting in an inappropriate fashion.’

I wonder if McGrath would have been fired if he’d been gay and just like other hetero troop leaders who are not political activists of any kind. Just a regular guy who happens to be gay but without a label who wants to be a troop leader who knows when to separate his politics from things related to scouting. In other words, if I had a kid in the scouts and that kid was taken to ANY event other than something related to scouting I’m not sure I would have appreciated McGrath putting my kid into an activist situation. If a troop leader were to take a kid of mine to ANY political event that’s geared toward ANY kind of activism I would have hit the roof and pulled my kid out of the troop.

So I just have to wonder about this one, and whether or not McGrath overstepped his boundaries this time by interjecting his activist politics into a group that isn’t supposed to be political at all. I’m well aware of the issues with boy scouts being anti-gay. And I’ve never been a huge fan of them for this reason. But what McGrath did is not something I would have done, and I don’t think gay pride is appropriate for everyone in this case. I’m not even fond of these gay pride events myself because when they aren’t capitalizing for profit they are pushing political agendas that have nothing to do with equality or discrimination. More often than not they bully, and I’m starting to think we should all be re-thinking gay pride as it stands. The people doing most of the work now are fighting the issues in court.

You can read more here. I wish there was more information that would answer some of the questions I have, but like most news pieces these days this one seems to have a slant, too.