Has Religion no place for the 'T' in GLBT?

[icymist]

Religious leaders speak about faith and homosexuality

Weinstein: Scriptures must be taken in context
J.J. Alcantara
Issue date: 3/27/08 Section: News

Rabbi Barry Weinstein spoke to a room of University students Wednesday evening and told them people must interpret the scriptures in context.


"There are all kinds of rules , and it is easy to take it out of the text and use it to mean something else," said Weinstein, who is the former leader of the Temple B'nai Israel and co-founder of ONE BATON ROUGE.


Four religious leaders spoke to University students about the stances of their respective religions on homosexuality. The Gays, Bisexuals, Lesbians, Supporters United hosted the interfaith panel Wednesday evening in the University Student Union.


Weinstein said people are brothers and sisters in God's kingdom, and there is no room for pushing someone out in the community.

Read the full article

see the picture on this article saying GBLS: Gays, Bis, Lesbians, and their Supporters. What happened to "T's"?

[Meeker Morgan]

1. How about bagging religion entirely?

Why do you need to pay some guy to tell you that a horror-fantasy in charge of the universe loves you?

I mean really?

[roughsatori]

2. In Iran corrective sexual reassignment surgery is legal,, (but they execute gay men).

Iranian physicians perform more gender-corrective surgeries than most liberal European countries. After the 1979 Revolution Ayatollah Khomeini made it religious law that individuals people who suffer from being females born into a male body/mind/spirit (and men who are born into a biological female body) are permitted and encouraged to have the sexual reassignment surgery so as to live out Allah's will.

Today the Iranian Government, officially, and internationally, keeps quiet on this topic. The Iranian Government is now considering if the corrective surgery should be completely paid for by the sate.

It is very interesting.

Here's a link wish a small amount of info, but it links to some good stuff.

As for your question regarding religions allowing transgendered individuals a seat at the table: I can only wonder that humans practicing Religion have committed more acts of murder and torture than any other belief system. That does not mean I am anti-all people who practice a religion. I admire some practitioners very much.


Link regarding Iran and corrective surgery:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transsexuality_in_Iran

[icymist]

6. I remember reading that in a newspaper article a couple years back....

At that time I thought maybe I'd want to be there.... then I thought of all of you and decided to stay. We're all in this together.

[Smarmie Doofus]

7. As I was reading the link I was wondering if they were going there:

>>>A small number of Iranian clerics have advised that homosexual men and women undergo gender reassignment in order for them to be able to live "normal lives".>>>>


And... I was right. It seems the logical extension of the argument.

Let's hope that number remains "small" and that the secularists make a comeback sometime soon in Iran.

Fascinating stuff.

[davidinalameda]

3. maybe the speech was on sexual orientation

and not gender identity?

[Moloch]

4. Wow. You're actually outraged...

that one person forgot to mention transvestites to a college reporter? If that's a huge crisis, everything must be going pretty well for you.

[icymist]

5. Excuse me? Just asking a question is outrageous?

Tisk tisk.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

17. i woudnt pay attention to the words of a bigot.

:hi:

[Creideiki]

8. T isn't "transvestite" T is Transgender or Transsexual depending on whom you talk to

There's a big difference.

[Name removed]

9. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[LostinVA]

10. Wow -- get out of GLBT with your filth

That has to be one of the nastiest, transphobic remarks I've seen on DU.

[Moloch]

12. My god.

Because I think transvestites should not be included in the gay, lesbian and bisexual rights struggle I'm transphobic? (That's not even a word!) This reminds me of the era around 2002 when if you criticized bush or the iraq war, you were automatically labeled as "against America"

I have as much right to be here as you, although I wish it were just the GLB forum.

NAMBLA considers itself to be part of the gay-rights movement, too. That doesn't mean it is, or ever should be.

[galledgoblin]

13. we must all hang together or hang seperate

Trans rights have long been accepted as part of gender and sexual issues and strengthen our platform. it's just another part of the overall theme of accepting individuality.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

14. whats wrong with you? why the hell did you bring NAMBLA Into this

:puke:

[LostinVA]

18. There's a difference between Transvestites and Transexuals

Your post was disgustingly bigoted. BTW, transphobia is against DU rules, just like homophobia is. Hate to break it to you, but transphobic is a word. A word that describes you, in fact.

How dare you compare the "T" in GLBT to NAMBLA. As I said, your bigotry is SICKENING.

[Moloch]

19. Really?

Transvestitism was a term coined by Mangus Hirschfield in the early part of the twentieth century to describe a "third sex" or someone who feels that they are mentally a different gender than they are physically. Isn't that what transexuals claim they are? Are you trying to say that transexuals are just men who get a sexual thrill from dressing as the opposite gender?

NAMBLA and the transvestites have both tried to hijack the gay-rights movements to serve their own ends.. to the detriment of the movement. I always thought that people shouldn't have to worry about discrimination in the workplace based on sexual orientation... the transvestites apparently don't think so and tried to sink ENDA and condemn one of the only openly gay members of the House of Representatives as a bigot when he was trying to make a stand for equality. I wouldn't support a gay group who demanded to be tacked onto a bill designed to promote the rights of immigrants. Yet, transvestites and their puppets in the national glbT organizations wanted so badly to sink it. It really is sad that the most vociferous opposition to the bill came not from traditionally anti-gay forces like the fundamentalists but those who act like they are allied with the gay-rights movement. How dare they.

[maddiejoan]

20. ENDA is worthless paper

without including the rights of people to not be discriminated against for appearing in a manner that doesn't conform to gender 'norms'.
I would be one that would be very quick to point out that Barney Frank sold "T" down the river.

"trans-inclusion" as it has been wrongly termed, also protects "butch women", "femme men" and all manner of gender queers. Not just transexuals.


On Magnus Hirschfeld, (himself a transvestite) who you discuss, he most certainly DID recognize the difference between transexuals and transvestites, though he did not have a term for it.
The term "Die Transvestiten" which he did indeed coin in 1910, he considered to be woefuly inadequate to describe two very different groups which exhibited a superficial similarity.

Instead he later brought transexuals and transvestites under a rather large umbrella term , that he coined as "Third Sex" which then would be similar to the term 'transgender' in it's scope.
Transvestites are most certainly NOT the same as Transexuals. Transexuality is an expression of core identity issues, Transvestism is a clothing fetish.

<snip>
Magnus Hirschfeld coined the term transvestism (from Latin trans-, "across, over" and vestere, "to dress or to wear") in 1910 in his book "Die Transvestiten : eine Untersuchung über den erotischen Verkleidungstrieb" ("The transvestites : an investigation of the erotic urge to disguise"). He used it to describe persons who habitually and voluntarily wore clothes of the opposite sex. (The distinction between sex and gender had not been made at that time.) Hirschfeld's group of transvestites consisted of both males and females, with (physically) heterosexual, (physically) homosexual, bisexual and asexual orientations. <1>
Hirschfeld himself was not particularly happy with the term: he understood that clothing was only an outward symbol chosen on the basis of various internal psychological situations. In fact, Hirschfeld helped people to achieve the very first name changes (legal given names were and are required to be gender-specific in Germany) and to get the very first sexual reassignment surgery. Hirschfeld's transvestites therefore were, in today's terms, not only transvestites, but people from all over the transgender spectrum.
Hirschfeld operated very much in a three-gender framework: male; female; and other, or third gender. Included in this third gender were all who, in today's terms, violated heteronormative bounds. Again, in today's terms, this is very much equivalent with the queer community—lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender persons. There was, therefore, no pressing reason to find different terms for the different shades of Hirschfeld's transvestism.
Hirschfeld also noticed that sexual arousal was often, but not always, associated with transvestite behaviour; he also clearly distinguished between transvestism as an expression of a person's "contra-sexual" (transgender) feelings and fetishistic behaviour, even if the latter involved wearing clothes of the other sex.
Today, Hirschfeld's use of transvestism is extinct, but the modern term transgender is used in a nearly equivalent sense.
<snip>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transvestism

I've seen you make many similarly TRANSPHOBIC posts in the past (yes --it most certainly is a word) and frankly --you disgust me.

Lastly, How dare WE? How dare YOU --if you are in fact any kind of self-respecting queer, push your T brothers and sisters off the cliff.
We are the most visibly discriminated against, and unless you forget --it was WE that threw the first beer bottles at Stonewall.

[Moloch]

21. You should actually read ENDA.

People do not choose to be gay, but people DO chose what to wear. We all have to wear things we don't like to at work.. transvestites just have to deal with it like everybody else. An end to job discrimination is one of the long-term goals to the GLB movement and it is reprehensible that transvestites want to ruin it for the rest of us. Its a lot like Hillary Clinton, she knows she can't win, but she seems willing to drag down the entire party for her own vanity.

By the way -- Transphobia is not a word according to dictionary.com or the spell-checking on this website. I see what you're getting at.. but I'm not afraid of transvestites, I just hate the parasitic way they have latched onto the gay-rights movement.

[maddiejoan]

23. Your continued use of the word Transvestite

to conflate transexualism with a mere clothing fetrish is repulsive.

Clearly you are afraid of something deeper --regarding your own sense of gender identity.
I have read ENDA --and I don't see your point--other than to continue your silly tirade against transgendered people.

Comparing my desire to see an end to transgender discrimination is hardly "vanity".

[La Lioness Priyanka]

24. this is just stupid. as a queer woman i barely get discriminated against because i am gender

conforming. what is the fucking point in a bill that will protect me and not my butch girlfriend or femme brother? those are the ones who need the protection the most.

stupid. stupid. stupid.

hi maddie!! we should do that brunch soon!

[maddiejoan]

25. I'd like that a lot!

Let's do!

[LostinVA]

28. Maddie, I can't believe this poster's bigotry is allowed to stand

Let alone in the GLBT forum. It is sickening.

:hug:

[Moloch]

29. Ahhh.. the same old tired argument..

that a homophobic person must be gay themselves. Its interesting that you've twisted it to accuse me transvestitism but nothing could be further from the truth. Transvestitism is the ultimate form of internalized homophobia.. what it says is that they are incapable of loving the same sex, so they have put on clothing and wigs of the opposite sex.

Most employers have a dress code and what the transvestites are doing is asking them all to give it up. Furthermore, the transvestite demand for separate bathrooms would cost too much... especially when transvestites make up ~1% of the population. The gay movement has been fighting forever for an end to employment discrimination? Why do you think gays and lesbians should be discriminated against? The movement will not soon forget this stab in the back.

[maddiejoan]

30. well I didn't accuse you of transvestism at all

what I said is you obviously have some gender issues.

it's quite apparent from your posts in fact.

Your understanding of what 'transgender' means --is likewise skewed so much by your readily apparent hatred, that I don't know whether to laugh or to thank the lord above that the likelyhood of you reproducing is miniscule at best.

I'm a transexual --sweetie. I'm not a transvestite (which is more commonly a heterosexual clothing fetishist who isunlikely to appear at work in anything but "normal" clothing --okay maybe panties underneath)

But please --continue to display your incredible ignorance.

[UncleSepp]

33. The demand for separate bathrooms?

Where are you getting this stuff? There might be a few trans people who are demanding this, but it's not a real trans issue. People who get weirded out by a trans person using "their" bathroom are the ones who want separate bathrooms. We just want to pee in peace and safety.

[LostinVA]

27. Gender identity is NOT a choice

Could you simply just choose to live as the opposite sex?

Stop calling transgendered people transvestites. It's fucking transphobic and bigoted.

[Creideiki]

31. Let me explain how this ENDA does nothing for you.

I'll use myself as an example.

I am a gay man. And really masculine.

I have sex with men--people that act in accordance to the male gender.

But only persons of the female gender is attracted to people of the male gender.

Therefore, ENDA does not protect me not because of the sexual orientation but because of the gender role hang-ups of the people that have gender role hang-ups.

Sounds far-fetched, right? But all it's going to take is a court sympathetic to the plight of the people that conflate sexual activity with gender roles. Gender identity comes into the core of all sexual politics. And if Mr. Kennedy and Mr. Frank don't get that, then they really need to get better debate partners.

[LostinVA]

26. Get out of the GLBT forum with your transphobia

And how dare you state that I think transexuals are just men with a crossdressing fetish.

I have trans friends on DU, and they know I'm not a bigot, like you.

Read some Jenny Boylan. Perhaps you might actually expand your mind, not like you're interested in that, though. Bigotry is much easier.

[Jamastiene]

22. You are equating NAMBLA and transvestites?

You need a serious reality check. The two are nowhere near the same in any way.

[tjwmason]

11. I'm sorry?

In case you didn't notice the title at the top of this web-site, it's "Democratic Underground" not "Bigotted Underground".

I've never had any personal contact with transgendered or transsexual people - but suggesting that their problems are comprised of "pointless drama" or various narcotic use says far more about you than it ever could about them.

[Name removed]

15. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

16. its sounds like they were just talking about homosexuality and god

not gender identity

i think a lot of people dont understand the difference in the two and some are unknowingly exclusionary, ofcourse are just asshole and bigots, like the person on this thread

:hi:

[UncleSepp]

32. Yes! Yes it has.

Reuben Zellman, the rabbinic intern at Sha'ar Zahav in San Francisco, is trans. Here's something he's written that specifically speaks to the place T's have, in his analysis - I have to put the caveat here that no one person or group of people, rabbi, scholar, or otherwise, can be considered to speak for what all Jews believe.

http://www.shaarzahav.org/sites/default/files/HHD2006-Drash-RH-Zellman.pdf

And what about people in the middle? Our tradition knows middle time and middle
space—how does it treat human beings who do not fall neatly into a gender category?
Yes, our rabbis of ancient times knew that humanity did not fit into two boxes. Just as
day and night cannot be clearly divided into two, according to some of our most ancient
texts, neither can people. In approximately 100 C.E., it was written in the Mishna: there
are people who “are in some ways like men, and in some ways like women, and in some
ways like both men and women, and in some ways like neither men nor women.”3 It
goes on to say that people of intermediate sex and gender were not to be harmed; their
lives were of equal value to any other person’s. A few hundred years later, the Talmud4
describes our ancestors Abraham and Sarah as tumtumim—as people whose gender or
genitals could not be clearly labeled. Today it may be almost hard to believe that the
Talmud could envision Sarah and Abraham in this way. They are the ancestors of our
people, and we are told that their gender could not be determined. Dozens and dozens of
other Jewish texts speak of sex and gender in similar ways. Twilight cannot be defined;
it can only be sanctified and appreciated. People can’t always be defined; they can only
be seen and respected, and their lives made holy. This Jewish approach allows for
genders between male and female. It opens space in society. And it protects those who
live in the places in between.

3 M. Bikkurim 4:1
4 BT Yevamot 64a-b

Edited to add more. Here's something that's particularly timely.

Liberation and Transgender Jews
by Rabbi Ayelet S. Cohen on Thursday April 13, 2006
15 Nisan, 5766
Exodus 12:21-51,Passover

http://www.jewishmosaic.org/torah/show_torah/12

Our Passover Hagaddah reminds us that in every generation each of us is obligated to see ourselves as if we had personally left Egypt. Jews know Egypt. Jews in every generation have too often experienced “Egypt,” or mitzrayim, narrow places where we are enslaved – physically or metaphorically – and silenced for being who we are. Gay and lesbian Jews are even better suited to fulfill that commandment, for everyone who has left the closet has known Egypt and has left Egypt in their lifetimes.

But what if mitzrayim was not a place, or not even a set of expectations, or societal norms, or religious prohibitions, or legal limitations. What if mitzrayim was your own body? And every time you looked at your reflection, every time someone called you by your name, you knew that you were imprisoned, enslaved in a body that was not your home. And like the generations of our ancestors born in Egypt, you were born into that narrow place. And even though you had never known anything else you knew, in your heart of hearts, that you did not belong there.

A list of transgender resources from the same site:

http://www.jewishmosaic.org/page/load_page/55

And the prayers by Rabbi Elliot Kukla, a Reform rabbi who is also transgendered:

http://phlamer.blogspot.com/2007/08/new-jewish-manual-includes-sex-change.html

A prayer for transition: "Blessed are You, Eternal One, our God, Ruler of time and space, the Transforming One to those who transform/transition/cross over"

And a morning prayer: "Blessed are You, Eternal One our God, Ruler of time and space, who has made me in God's image."

[mitchtv]

34. this Obama-nable poster

is doing more harm than good for their Avatar. Keep it up asshole. You know who I mean.

[and-justice-for-all]

35. Religion is an Atrocity...

and should be removed from society.