Tennessee resident Andrea Jones effectively demonstrated this week how poorly transgender people can be treated. According to the federal government, Jones is a woman, but Tennessee’s Department of Safety says she doesn’t have enough proof to have her state gender documentation changed. The state claims she only had partial sexual reassignment surgery and state law requires a “full sex change” to recognize a change of gender. When her paperwork was rejected, she went outside and removed her shirt in protest, for which she was arrested. The police report read:

Mr. Jones continued to yell that he had the right to show his breasts in public and wanted to be recognized as a female.

If the state recognizes her as a male, then it was not against the law for her to remove her shirt in public, as only the showing of “the female breast” counts as public indecency under Tennessee law. The state is essentially punishing her both for being female enough and for not being female enough, whereas the federal government already recognizes her as female.

Jones’ story demonstrates how unrealistic it is to set standards of “proof” for people to identify their gender transition. If trans people were celebrated for their authenticity, they would not face the undue hardship of being punished just for being who they are.

WATE has a video report of Jones’ struggle.

The FAMiLY Leader’s Bob Vander Plaats has again singled out ThinkProgress for “distorting” the group’s radical marriage fidelity pledge and accused this blog of trying to “tear us down while we’re young…because of our commitment to marriage.” Watch Vander Plaats’ remarks:

ThinkProgress has indeed targeted the Iowa group for its efforts to deny marriage rights to gays and lesbians and spread misinformation that likened homosexuality to second-hand smoke and falsely claimed that being gay is a choice. The group’s pledge also sought to ban pornography and suggested that African Americans benefited from stronger families during the period of slavery.

Our reporters asked the presidential candidates who appeared at the FAMiLY Leader’s forums if they agreed with these views (only two, Santorum and Bachmann signed the pledge) and published videos of Vander Plaats laughing at a gay slur and even suggesting that President Obama wasn’t born in the United States. That’s not so much an effort to “tear” Vander Plaats down, as it is to expose the radical views that Republican presidential candidates associate with.

But “the left” isn’t alone in criticizing Vander Plaats. Top Iowa Republicans have warned group that it is on the verge of losing all political credibility in the state. Iowa House Speaker Pro-Tem Jeff Kaufmann (R), who worked as a county chairman on FAMiLY LEADER head Bob Vander Plaats’ failed gubernatorial campaign, e-mailed Vander Plaats and the organization’s other leaders to tell them that the pledge had “ridiculous implications” and that they would soon have “no impact” in the state, the Des Moines Register reported. Mitt Romney has described the group’s Pledge as “undignified and inappropriate,” and Blue Bunny, a company with close connections to the group, has also distanced itself from the organization.

Documentary film maker Kristina Lapinski attended Thursday night’s Granite State Patriots Liberty PAC candidates forum in New Hampshire and asked Rick Santorum how he would react if she — a lesbian — were his daughter. The former Pennsylvania senator said he would love her, before claiming, “like anything in life, it is your choice“:

“What would you do if I was your daughter?”
Santorum smiled, “I would love you!”
“Would you want me to get married and have a family?” asked Lapinski.
“Only if it were with a man.”
“But I am not attracted to men,” Lapinski retorted.
“But it is your choice,” Santorum insisted.
“Rick, it is not my choice!” Lapinski argued.
He continued with great authority: “Like anything in life, it is a choice. You may feel this is the way that it is supposed to be; you make decisions in life, and you choose what is right.”

Watch clips from Lapinksi’s interactions with Santorum and Newt Gingrich:

The Brooklyn Museum is in hot water with Republicans for its new exhibit about the experience of gays and lesbians in American art, called “Hide/Seek.” The museum decided to include in the show A Fire In My Belly, a compilation of video footage by the late artist David Wojnarowicz exploring the suffering of people with HIV/AIDS. That same film was ultimately pulled from an exhibit at the National Portrait Gallery last year to placate Republicans and social conservatives.

Now, in what seems like a case of deja vu all over again, Right Wing Watch reports Republican politicians in New York are attacking the Brooklyn Museum for hosting the exhibit and demanding they censor the film:

While the Brooklyn Museum is defending itself from censorship proponents, Republican politicians are beginning to make threats against the museum. Republican state senator Andrew Lanza introduced legislation to have the government withdraw “all public funding of the museum”:

“It is outrageous for an institution that accepts funding from city, state and federal governments to display content that is so blatantly disrespectful and offensive to Christians during the holiday season,” said Senator Andrew Lanza. “Taxpayers shouldn’t have to pay for hatred and ignorance.”

Senator Lanza believes that the actions of the Museum are analogous to a hate crime. He is calling for all public funding of the museum to be withdrawn.

Lanza did not explain how simply showing a film is similar to a “hate crime,” or why illustrating the suffering of people with HIV/AIDS is “disrespectful and offensive” to Christians in particular. Rep. Michael Grimm, Councilman James Oddo, Councilman Vincent Ignizio, Assemblywoman Nicole Malliotakis, Assemblyman Lou Tobacco and Staten Island Borough President James Molinaro have all signed on to a letter calling the film “sacrilegious” for depicting ants crawling on a crucifix. “This is not art, this is Christian-bashing,” they wrote, pointing out that Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) both advocated for censoring the film last year.

In their crusade against the “offensive” film, these New York politicians find themselves working with some pretty offensive bedfellows. Bill Donohue of the Catholic League led the charge to censor the film at the Smithsonian exhibit last year, and is ramping up his gay-bashing rhetoric to condemn the Brooklyn Museum.

In a statement, Donohue attacks the film’s creator, saying he got what he deserved by dying of AIDS. “The fact is that the artist who made the vile video died of self-inflicted wounds: he died of AIDS,” Donohue writes. “The homosexual, David Wojnarowicz, hated the Catholic Church (had he lived by its teachings, he would not have self-destructed.”

Our guest blogger is Elon Green, a freelance writer living in Brooklyn.

Throughout his campaign, Mitt Romney has struggled to deflect criticism that he is an unprincipled flip-flopper. This argument has been pointed out by his competition and by leading conservative commentators such as Brit Hume, who recently warned, “You are only allowed a certain number of flips before people doubt your character.” Indeed, Romney’s shifting positions have extended to issues including, but certainly not limited to, abortion, health care, and climate change.

But of all the issues on which Romney has taken a stance, few have been subject to  more contortions than homosexuality and marriage equality. It’s often noted that Romney’s vigorous opposition to gay marriage — so extreme that he has aligned himself with the right-wing National Organization for Marriage — is not a staunch, long-held belief. During Romney’s 1994 senatorial run, for example, he pledged to “make equality for gays and lesbians a mainstream concern.” Eight years later, during his 2002 run for governor, Romney took a similarly progressive position when he proclaimed, “All citizens deserve equal rights, regardless of sexual preference.”

What has been largely overlooked is that prior to Romney’s unsuccessful senatorial run, his beliefs about gays were, to put it kindly, not so magnanimous. According to several articles in the Boston Globe in the mid ’90s, just before launching his senate run, Romney told an audience of Mormon Church members that homosexuality was “perverse” and “reprehensible.” From the Boston Globe, July 15, 1994:

Speaking last fall to a Mormon Church gathering, Mitt Romney, then on the verge of launching a bid for a US Senate seat, expressed dismay at reports of homosexual behavior in the group and denounced homosexuality as “perverse,” according to several people present at the meeting.

Romney’s alleged comments on homosexual practices were part of a 20-minute address he delivered on November 14 to the Cambridge University Ward, which numbers about 250 to 300 single Mormons.

Read more

Last night, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan became the first sitting cabinet secretary to come out in favor of same-sex marriage, telling Metro Weekly’s Chris Geidner that he “absolutely” supports same-sex marriage. Donovan made the remarks at the National Center for Transgender Equality Awards Ceremony, in which he highlighted “the agency’s advancements towards ending anti-LGBT discrimination in housing”:

Asked about this summer’s passage of marriage equality in New York, Donovan says, ”I was enormously proud to be a New Yorker on the day that it passed. I actually worked for Andrew Cuomo when he was Housing Secretary. I worked for Mike Bloomberg who has been a constant supporter of the law – what is now law.”

He talked about how the law’s passage had affected those around him, saying, ”So many friends that I know were able to achieve a dream the day that law passed. And so many neighbors.

”It made me proud to be a New Yorker – not enough to get me to move back. We’ve got more work to do in the Obama administration in a second term.”

Asked if that included marriage equality, Donovan confirmed it did, saying, ‘‘Like marriage equality.”

Donavan’s answer puts him to the left of President Obama, who in 1996 signed a survey supporting marriage equality but has since said that he backs civil unions and is still “evolving” on marriage. In 2009, Melody Barnes, the director of the White House Domestic Policy Council, also hinted that she sympathized with same-sex marriage, saying, “I come to my experience based on what I’ve learned, based on the relationships that I’ve had with friends and their relationships that I respect, the children that they are raising, and that is something that I support.” At the time, Barnes was the highest ranking administration official to support marriage, a distinction that now belongs to Donovan.