VenusPlusX®

VenusPlusX™ is devoted to ushering in “The New Age of Sexual Freedom” – a world free from the global culture of racial, sexual, and gender oppression and violence driven by governments, religions, corporations, and social customs.

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ETC, New Education and Advocacy Organization for DC Trans Community

If you fall, you get up and try again. If you have the drive, stamina, and dedication of one Ms. Earline Budd you don’t let anyone or anything stand in your way.

Earline Budd Washington, DC

The legions of trans people and their families that she has served quietly but fiercely for the last 20 years refer to her reverently as “Ms. Budd.” She is best known as the driving force behind DC’s annual Transgender Day of Remembrance that honors the lives of people who die all to frequently just because they were standing in their truth.

She’s also widely known for the organization she founded, Trans Health Empowerment (THE). For many years it was the only resource helping the trans community find housing, health care, employment, and to nurture victims of violence and help families bury those who paid the ultimate price just because of their gender identification.

“There is not a person in this world who asks for my help who would be refused. Call me 24/7, and I’ll be there for you,” says Ms. Budd.

Other organizations have emerged that expanded on this initial mission, such as CasaRuby, which is leading the way in providing housing for homeless trans youth and adults. But Ms. Budd was the go-to person for many years before that. She was the OG, the original girl.

One day, not too long ago, Ms. Budd had the worst day of her life when it came to light that there had been financial malfeasance among the people she had trusted to manage the business end of THE. The doors closed with a large bang.

Ms. Budd, a force of nature in her own right, decided that this was not to be the end of her life’s work, that she was going to write the next and better chapter of her life of service. With the crucial assistance of the American University Legal Clinic, under the leadership of Professor Brenda Smith, the hard work of rebuilding began and continued for more than two years.

This year, this new 501(c)3 organization obtained its articles of incorporation and opened with a new board of directors. It is called Empowering Transgender Community or ETC, and its mission will be laser-focused on Education and Advocacy on issues such as HIV/AIDS, sexually transmitted disease prevention, substance abuse, mental health, health services, housing, employment, and vocational training. Community workshops, conferences, trainings, and a speaker series are planned, along with opening a welcoming center, a safe place to learn and grow, and emergency shelters.

ETC Board Members left to right back row: Jeri Hughes, Kylar Broadus, and David Mariner; right to left front row: Earline Budd, Dr. Patricia Hawkins and Roxanne Jackson

“I struggled daily to see this day, and now I rise each day to the success of tomorrow,” says Ms. Budd, adding that she’s looking forward to expanding one day with an ETC Housing program to further the organization’s mission to support and save lives.

Everyone is invited to the ETC’s Official Launch Party and Fundraiser on November 19 at the Town Danceboutique, 6 PM to 9 PM (2009 8th Street N.W).

We join the community in welcoming and working alongside this new enterprise. There is just so much work to done, we need more resources like ETC and Casa Ruby.

If you are in DC and care about trans people, you probably either know Ms. Budd or are just one degree of separation. Reach out and help her get ETC to take flight. You can reach her directly by email, [email protected].

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    ETC, New Education and Advocacy Organization for DC Trans Community was originally published on VenusPlusX | English

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Gender Yes. Binary No.

(También en Español)

How do you separate the socially imposed gender binary from what you feel inside and define about gender?

How will the right to any form of gender expression be freed from the restraints applied by society?

Leave a comment and let us know what you think, or make your own video or blog to share. We will send you a free VenusPlusX t-shirt to thank you.

  Gender Yes. Binary No. was originally published on VenusPlusX | English

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The Only Use For Your Privilege Is To Give It To Someone Who Has None

(También en Español)

What is your privilege? Race, education, economic status? How have you used, or would like to use, your privilege, however small, to benefit others, to pave the way for those who need it?

Leave a comment and let us know what you think, or make your own video or blog to share. We will send you a free VenusPlusX t-shirt to thank you.

Video edited by Tiye Massey.

The Only Use For Your Privilege Is To Give It To Someone Who Has None was originally published on VenusPlusX | English

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Off To College? Are You Ashamed? (Part 2)

This continues from Part 1 a discussion about private colleges and universities obtaining religious exemptions to legally discriminate against students who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) and against their faculty and employees with whom they differ, straight or not. We began with The Shame List put out by Campus Pride showing which institutions are complicit, and threw in a short refresher course on the actual meaning of freedom of religion.

Photo by Francisco Osorio Flickr/creative commons

Even if you do not attend one of these colleges, you should first be appalled by the power over sanity that our government continues to bestow on religiously purposed organizations. We are already quite familiar with the religion lobby’s success in quashing birth control and abortion access through similar exemptions, or “carve outs,” that legalize discrimination.

The Shame List of schools demonstrates yet another example of religious zealots exploiting government to opt out of constitutional human rights.

If you are a student at one of these colleges or not, you are right to be worried about the real pain and pressure this puts on your peers whether or not they are LGBT. Think of the 100s of LGBT students right now who are locked in the closet on these campuses. What are the clear and present dangers they must deal with daily? How will those nurtured by this hateful discrimination interact with you in the work force and in the community after college?

If you are just a tax-payer you should be very concerned if state money is being given to a private college that wants exemptions from established lawful protections for LGBT people, who are covered by Title IX.

If you are an employee or a faculty member at one of these colleges you should be just as concerned because this discrimination often extends to “discipline, admissions, hiring, and employment decisions, in matters such as employment leaves for pregnancy, childbirth, and elective termination of pregnancy, or on the basis of pre-marital sex, unmarried pregnancy, extramarital sex . . .” For more, read Andy Birkey’s “Dozens of Christian schools win Title IX waivers to ban LGBT Students.”

Academe is about knowledge and about facts. The very definition of a university is the open exchange of ideas among equals. These are the two things these schools fear the most because both can easily undo the illogic underpinning their bigotry.

Campus Pride is to be commended in its efforts, not just in exposing these fake colleges, but in its efforts to create change by building activist channels right on these campuses. The organization recently partnered with Faith In America to launch the #LGBTQNotaSin Campaign, aiming to reduce the stigma and increase visibility of LGBT-affirming Christians.

A December 2015 report by the Human Rights Campaign, “Hidden Discrimination: Title IX Religious Exemptions Putting LGBT Students At Risk” called on the US Department of Education to take action on the issue citing the work of Campus Pride.

California is one state that’s trying to do something about this, putting forth legislation that would remind these schools that they still must obey state non-discrimination laws in order to continue to receive any state funding whatsoever, including state loans and grants for tuition. The new law would also force them to make their discrimination policy available to the public, including in their marketing materials; and to file the same information with the state’s Student Aid Commission where their school will go on a publicly available list with the reasoning behind their requested exemption. Talk about shame. Hoping it will be effective although ideologues rarely have any shame.

Be outraged if you or your child is attending one these schools or you know someone who is. Maybe they had a choice, and maybe they didn’t. Either way they deserve our support and dedication to rolling back these unnecessary and specious incursions into civic law at the whim of a bunch of religious extremists (almost always old, white men).

Maybe you didn’t know that institutions you may have once trusted have become pockets of bigotry and discrimination. Support Campus Pride, work within your own religious organization, and make yourself heard if you are taxpayer who doesn’t support legalizing LGBT discrimination.

www.campuspride.org/shamelist

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Off To College? Are You Ashamed? (Part 2) was originally published on VenusPlusX | English

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Off To College? Are You Ashamed? (Part 1)

Maybe you are packing suitcases right now, or helping your teenager to pack, while planning the big drop off on campus in the next few weeks. You might be unaware of the religious intolerance you may face as part of your new community. As a student on one of these campuses or an employee or faculty or even just a tax-payer in the same state you have much to be concerned about.

The number of colleges and universities officially filing, or already have successfully filed, for Title IX exemptions in order to legally discriminate against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) students has grown to a whopping 75.

You can view Campus Pride’s “Shame List” to understand the contempt of law and civility these so-called institutions of higher learning are revealing to our young people.

“Families and young people deserve to know that this list of schools are not loving, welcoming, safe spaces to live, learn and grow – and taxpayers should definitely not have to pay for a private college to openly discriminate against anyone.” Shane Windmeyer, Campus Pride Executive Director

A short course in Freedom of Religion

Freedom of religion includes freedom from religion. An atheist is an equal in all matters pertaining to government and law. Belief in any religion is a private matter, nor should any religious activity be given special treatment. Even Jesus said something like, “Have you faith? have it to yourself before God.” Your personal religion has nothing to do with anyone else, period.

Since this country’s founding, our lawmakers have chosen to make certain exceptions, such as making houses of worship tax-exempt. But that applies equally to all religions. What these christianists are demanding now goes much further, asking to be singled out to legally discriminate against anyone who their doctrines dictate unworthy. These people are not real Christians, just people who exploit Christianity. That’s why we call them christianists, rather than Christians.

This is what Christian Sharia looks like, folks, and why the separation of church and state is so crucial to our democracy.

Check out Part 2, tomorrow, that shows exactly why you, everyone, straight or LGBT, parent, student, employee, or taxpayer should be very concerned about this; and includes what one state is doing, and what you can do, to curtail this abuse.

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Off To College? Are You Ashamed? (Part 1) was originally published on VenusPlusX | English

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Robert Reich on Why We Can't Have Nice Things

“The biggest threats to American sovereignty are invisible digital dollars wired into U.S. election campaigns from abroad.” — Robert Reich

  Flickr/creative commons

Wrapping up my several days of again raising the alarm about the imperative to reverse the 2010 Supreme Court decision known as Citizen’s United (and what we can do about it), the last word for now must come from one of my heroes, progressive economist Robert Reich.

Much lauded Reich has emerged as the best spokesperson prescribing the cure for what is wrong in the US. You can follow his think pieces at his website, or Tumblr, and see his columns printed practically every day in all major news media outlets.

Robert Reich served as Secretary of Labor in the Clinton administration, has authored 14 books, most recently, Saving Capitalism, and was co-creator of the award-winning documentary, Inequality For All.

So naturally, we turn to Reich to shed light on the terrible predicament of Citizens United.

Sovereignty is mainly about a government’s capacity to govern. A government not fully accountable to its citizens won’t pass laws that benefit and protect those citizens – not just laws about trade and immigration but about national security, the environment, labor standards, the economy, and all else.

To state it another way: Without a functioning democracy, we just don’t have a country.

Reich offers us numerous examples of how Donald Trump has been actively soliciting political contributions from foreign actors and governments, which is against federal law. Unfortunately, the GOP members are in the majority on the ostensibly non-partisan Federal Elections Commission, and have reneged on their sworn duty by resisting any investigation.

Ever since the Citizens United decision, domestic operators and PACs with nameless donors have made huge anonymous contributions to their candidates, in essence buying them. This would be bad enough but the decision also gave cover to many foreign entities who have an interest in owning part of our democracy.

Besides the fact that both soliciting and accepting political contributions from abroad is illegal, Reich’s alarm gets right to the point.

“[T]he only way Americans have a fighting chance of getting trade deals that are in our interest – or, for that matter, any other kind of legislation that helps the vast majority – is by restricting the flow of global corporate money into American politics.”

Reich also points out an underlying larger problem in that 25% of the US’s public corporations are now owned by foreign nationals, so donations from these companies effectively “funnel some of their foreign shareholders’ assets into American politics.” Money buys influence, and that is something of interest to operators and bad actors in the US and overseas.

Reich is a able leader in the multiple efforts to reverse Citizen United. In my post earlier this week, I offered tools that even you armchair activists can use to start helping in this effort today.

Let’s rescue our democracy from the jaws of defeat. Democracy is bleeding out before our eyes. What are you going to do about it?

Flickr/creative commons

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Also see: $pecial Interest Government Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things and More On Why We Can’t Have Nice Things.

  Robert Reich on Why We Can’t Have Nice Things was originally published on VenusPlusX | English

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More On Why We Can't Have Nice Things

If people in the US agree on so much, why isn’t anything getting done?

This is a continuation of yesterday’s $pecial Interest Government Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things.

The stats are in

Image by DonkeyHoty Flickr/creative commons

Majorities of people in the US, Democrat, Republican, and Independent, agree to commons sense gun control (85%) and climate change action (including 65% who blame human activity).

The majority object to a tax system supporting income inequality (60% want higher taxes for the rich and 82% want corporations to pay their fair share in taxes) and an economy rigged in favor of corporations (more than 70%).

Including 80% of Republicans, most of us now agree that we must turn back the 2010 Citizens United Supreme Court decision that sold out our democracy to corporations. I wrote about that yesterday and included tools for activists to get involved locally and nationally.

  It’s worse than you think

Perhaps, even more troubling, Citizens United has given cover to foreign governments, corporations, and individuals who want to invest in and control the outcome of US elections. The GOP controls Federal Election Commission, and likes it that way. More on this awful outcome, tomorrow.

Hillary Clinton has promised to push for a constitutional amendment to reverse this democracy-killing decision, something easy to say considering the high bar requiring at least 38 state legislatures to vote in support of the amendment. Only legislative action in the US Congress, or a reversal by the Supreme Court itself, will correct this mistake.

  The horrible riddle of greed

Have you noticed that futurists spend years worrying about the Singularity, that moment in future-time when artificial intelligence will start out-thinking mere humans? Long before that and much closer to the ground, we have to worry about the predicament we find ourselves in right now, forcing us to take partial responsibility for allowing soulless corporations to have dominion over people who actually have souls. The Citizens United decision found our Supreme Court bestowing personhood rights to objects, that is, corporations. It sounds ridiculous. If only it were a joke.

We have a US Senators and Representatives who spend a large chunk of their time raising money for re-election, upwards of 50% for House members who have to face re-election every 24 months. The very notion that you need 100s of thousands, millions of dollars even, to win an election is a systemic problem. What is really going on is a huge auction for access and special interest power by lobbying corporations. Corporations have money to burn to control lawmaker decision-making, financed in large measure by their exploitation of their workers and consumers.

Long ago we lost sight of the ideal of the reluctanct statesman, promoted into public service by acclamation of his peers rather than his own avarice. Instead, our politics has spawned a cottage industry where power is bought and sold and can even be inherited. We began on this long path downward into the arms of greedy private benefactors the minute politics became a business instead of a sacred trust.

The money-influenced culture of our politics became the petri dish that spawned the benighted thinking of conservative justices on the Supreme Court. In 2010, with this terrible 5-4 decision, they made selling our democracy to the highest bidders the law of the land.

These salivating, greedy corporations are only to happy to redefine the word, democracy. They want you to forget what it ever stood for, and to accept the new paradigm: Democracy is what we tell you it is.

  What you can do now

Fight back against Citizens United and the corruption of our chosen senators and representatives in Congress. When we have cast them out, the surviving economy will look completely different, and, most important, it will be humane. No more low taxes, lax regulations, or greater exploitation of natural resources, an economic model [so] disconnected from the true sources of prosperity. The new economy model will focus on key drivers of growth, such as science, education, and innovation, proven in the states that focus on them.

Reminder to check out the resources for getting active today in reversing Citizens United. If you need to start from the convenience of your couch, don’t hesitate. There is plenty you can do right from home, and very close to home in your own community. The key word? Act.

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Also see: $pecial Interest Government is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things and Robert Reich On Why We Can’t Have Nice Things.

  More On Why We Can’t Have Nice Things was originally published on VenusPlusX | English

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$pecial Interest Government is Why We Can't Have Nice Things

Despite much hand-wringing by presidential candidates bemoaning a divided US, we the people are in agreement on many issues, including what is undermining our democracy. Frances Moore Lappé and Giulio Caperchi, writing for BillMoyers.com outline it for us based on a 2014 study covering both blue and red states.

Climate change. Americans’ concern about global warming is at an eight-year high, with a record 65 percent of us now blaming human activity for rising temperatures.

Gun control. Eighty-five percent of Americans — including large majorities of both Republicans and Democrats — favor closing gun-sale loopholes by enforcing background checks for private gun sales and at gun shows.

Our federal tax system. Six in 10 of us believe that upper-income Americans do not pay enough in taxes, while 82 percent are bothered — either “some” or “a lot” — that corporations are not paying their fair tax share.

The influence of big business. More than three-quarters of Americans believe that large corporations and a few rich people wield excessive and unfair power in this country. A whopping 71 percent of Americans across the political spectrum believe that the economy is rigged in favor of a few special interests.

Special interests’ influence in our political institutions. Eighty-four percent of Americans think that money has too much influence in elections. Nearly 8 in 10 favor limits on both raising and spending money in congressional campaigns. Meanwhile, 78 percent of Americans, including 80 percent of Republicans, want to overturn the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision that further opened the floodgates to corporate campaign spending, including spending from undisclosed sources.

Image by Feral78 Flickr/creative commons

Yes, you read that right, a full 80% of Republicans have joined Democrats and Independents in condemning the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision. As I have written before, I remember Dan Massey proclaiming on the day of that decision, “That’s the end of the US.” Turns out he was right.

Democracy as we knew it was no longer to be the product of the people. Once the Supreme Court ruled, corporations gained rights once constitutionally owned by persons, contrary to all US law up until that time. A corporation is a thing and not capable of acting as a person, but all that was denied by the court. Add to that, corporations were now able to conduct financial support for candidates without revealing the sources of these funds, “dark money.”

We urge all of you to get involved somehow in the movement to overturn Citizens United, the one thing that can rescue our democracy from the jaws of defeat. Hillary Clinton has pledged to do this but we cannot rely on a campaign promise, nor one based on the passage of Constitutional Amendment that requires the approval of 38 of our 50 states. One only has to look at the failure of the Equal Rights Movements‘ Constitutional Amendment, demanding equal rights for women, which never recovered from its stalled path through state approvals.

Besides just signing a petition, Democracy Is For People outlines specific actions you can take right now, and gives you the tools you’ll need.

Tell Your Senator to Co-Sponsor a Constitutional Amendment to Get Money Out of Politics

Call on Candidates to Take a People’s Pledge to Block Dark Money from Their Race

Gather Petition Signatures in Your Community

Join the Stamp Stampede to Stamp Money Out of Politics

Get involved in state efforts in Arkansas, Iowa,  New Hampshire, New York and Washington or check out the map to see what is happening in your state.

Sign up to Pass a Resolution in Your Town

Pass a Resolution on Your Campus

Tell the SEC to End Secret Corporate Political Spending

Hopefully, you now have fewer reasons to just sit back and do nothing.

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Also see: More On Why We Can’t Have Nice Things and Robert Reich On Why We Can”t Have Nice Things.

$pecial Interest Government is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things was originally published on VenusPlusX | English

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Blue States Prosper While Red States Falter

The data is in and cannot be refuted. Red states under the influence of Koch-styled governance are hurting their citizens through their inhumane policies. They are promoting “an economic model [so] disconnected from the true sources of prosperity.”

Flickr/creative commons

Editorializing earlier this week, Jacob S. Hacker and Paul Pierson, the authors of American Amnesia: How the War on Government Led Us to Forget What Made America Prosper, discuss this red-blue economic differential, noting that “the key drivers of growth are science, education and innovation, not low taxes, lax regulations or greater exploitation of natural resources.”

The difference between thriving blue states and floundering red states have other indicators as well. Red states, especially in the southeast, have the highest rates of child poverty, unwanted teen pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases (the direct results of abstinence only sex education), welfare to white people, pornography dependence, and religion-driven discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people. There is just no separation between policies/laws and economic outcomes and quality of life.

The elections in Kansas, yesterday, offered the first hope that this corporatist-driven theft of our democracy will be rejected by reasonable people. Eleven Kansas conservative lawmakers were sent packing.

While we’re at it . . . In 3 months, all 535 members of the US House of Representatives are running for election, and many of these culprits can and should be rejected by the voters. Just 200 years ago, in the 1816 elections, a full 75% of House incumbents were turned out of office for a conflict of interest that was minuscule when compared with today’s congressional dysfunction. How many can we send home in 2016?

  The states are indeed our laboratories where new ideas can be tried. If they are good they should become national models, as they often are. If there are bad results, policies and laws and the responsible elected officials must be changed.

But, what can you do about it, you ask? Get involved in down-ballot candidates that support progressive ideas, from the school board through the state houses. Do a little or a lot, but do something. You can make a difference. Data like these, including the excellent infographics offered by Hacker and Pierson, are excellent tools to help change the minds of those around you.

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Blue States Prosper While Red States Falter was originally published on VenusPlusX | English

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Action on Climate Change is a Matter of Life and Death

Truth-Out again raising the alarm: “every second, one person is displaced by disaster.”

Flickr/creative commons

“In 2015 only, more than 19.2 million people fled disasters in 113 countries. Disasters displace three to ten times more people than conflict and war worldwide.” (According to the Oslo-based Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) reports)

“We have never had so many complex and protracted humanitarian emergencies now happening simultaneously from West Africa all the way to Asia, with very few spots in between which do not have some issue. We have today 40 million forcibly displaced people and 20 million refugees, the greatest number of uprooted people since the Second World War.” (William Lacy Swing, International Organisation for Migration)

Swing continues . . .

“It is quite clear that we will have more and more conflicts over shortages of food and water that are going to be exacerbated by climate change.

Political crises and natural disasters are the other major drivers of migration today.”

As we have tried to stress over and over, it doesn’t matter whether you think climate change is man-made or not, the impact is already upon us and we must respond as a planet. It’s time to get off your sofa and do something.

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Action on Climate Change is a Matter of Life and Death was originally published on VenusPlusX | English

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Don't Blame The Caveman

Screenshot

Today I’m recommending Christopher Ryan‘s book, Sex At Dawn: How We Mate, Why We Stray, and What It Means for Modern Sexuality. 

Dan Savage called this book, “… the single most important book about human sexuality since Alfred Kinsey unleashed Sexual Behavior in the Human Male on the American public in 1948.” I agree.

A review on BigThink.com points out some important highlights, and below you will find Ryan’s own video on the book.

For example, our image of the tough caveman dragging unsuspecting women by the hair into a dark cave is completely erroneous. Women are hard-wired to like a lot of sex with multiple partners. It’s nature’s only guarantee that the human race will continue. The caveman just found a woman already engaging in sex and then waited around for his turn.

It was not until the advent of agriculture that man developed a notion of private property, and had reason to feel jealous of a promiscuous mate. Culture invented monogamy, and with it marriage, cheating, and a sense of shame that surrounds our sexual selves.

In the US, spending is over $100 million each year on the marital-industrial complex to compensate for the dysfunction. This includes everything from sex therapists, pharmaceuticals, and pornography.

Ryan’s prescription? Drop all shame and behave closer to your instinctual sexual nature. Couldn’t have said it better myself; in fact, I’ve said it many times.

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Don’t Blame The Caveman was originally published on VenusPlusX | English

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Hail the Passing of a Paranoid Homophobe

Americans United for the Separation of Church and State noted this week the death of 90-year-old Tim LaHaye, a name known and condemned by everyone who believes in equality rights.

Tim LaHaye, left, in a screenshot from the documentary “The God Who Was Not There,” courtesy of Niklas Pivic

Like me, you may remember his blockbuster Left Behind series of prophecies or other books he wrote as founder of Liberty University’s Tim LaHaye School of Prophecy. An avowed dominionist christianist, the series served to brand him forever as homophobia personified and as the darling of the Religious Right. LaHaye earned millions of dollars trying to smash every argument for equal rights for women and LGBT people.

Americans United featured a quote from LaHaye’s 1977 Understanding The Male Temperament that is a window into mental illness brought on by pure hatred.

“A large percentage of women’s and children’s attire is designed by homosexuals, who can hardly be expected to highlight the differences between the sexes. Because the mother is so feminine, what she considers ‘darling’ or ‘cute’ may really be harmful for a boy”

In that same book, he urged men to consider what it would be like to be under “submission…on a 24-hour basis, 365 days a year.”

“That is exactly what God demands of your wife,” he explained.

LaHaye was fixated with queer people to the point of obsession, believing we had superpowers with a secret language, the “biggest liars.” He became a hero to American fundamentalists by cleverly capitalizing on the intersection of christianists’ fixation with the “end times” and opposition to women’s rights and hatred of LGBT people. LaHaye’s blatant, unbridled cynicism made him grandfather to the modern Religious Right.

We are fast approaching a time when we will never remember his books or the man himself, although we have to continue to address and dismantle the Religious Right’s stranglehold on vast swaths of the US.

For more on the Religious Right, check out my series, American Fundamentalism (Dominionism) Drives Political Religious Right.

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    Hail the Passing of a Paranoid Homophobe was originally published on VenusPlusX | English

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Coining the Term, Free Love

Screenshot from VenusPlusX video montage on sexual freedom, below

We reminded everyone yesterday that long before Hillary Clinton, it was trailblazing sexual freedom advocate Victoria Woodhull who was the first woman to run for the US Presidency. That was in 1872, nearly 50 years before women were allowed to vote in this country.

Woodhull preached “free love” and was perhaps singularly responsible for coining the term. Almost 250 years ago, though, the terms, free love and sexual freedom, meant something very specific and vastly different that what they mean today.

Woodhull’s free love was about two things, only: A woman’s right to choose a husband; and her right to divorce her husband. Sit in the space for a moment. Feel what that level of sexual oppression must have been like. This was what free love meant to Woodhull’s contemporaries, a kind of love that spared a woman the indignity of being bestowed on a man without her consent.

This makes Woodhull one of our foremothers of women’s choice, a fight today that’s about to be won, giving women agency over their own bodies and the right to an abortion, and not just for an entitled few but for all women. This is the birth of true sexual freedom.

This is also a great time to pause and consider the long road we have traveled, standing on the shoulders of people like Woodhull, and be amazed at the progress we have made, especially since Roe v Wade.

Here is an inspirational montage video VenusPlusX produced, asking people what sexual freedom means to them.

The struggle continues but the path as clear. As Vice President Joe Biden just said tonight at the Democratic National Convention  that is nominating the first woman president this week speaking about the stakes of this momentous election, “The deadline belongs to us!”

Check out some of our hundreds of short-form videos by real folks telling us what they think sexual freedom. We send each contributor one of our prized VenusPlusX T-shirts (with our round seal and slogan: Sexual Freedom, You Are Born With It) when they send us a video (or an essay, work of art, etc.) expressing what sexual freedom means to them. So get out your phone or video camera and let us hear from you!

Also: A Manifesto for A New Age of Sexual Freedom (2014)

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    Coining the Term, Free Love was originally published on VenusPlusX | English

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Victoria Woodhull was the first woman nominated to be US President

Victoria Woodhull

This very day, Hillary Clinton will become the first woman nominated to be US President (by a major party). So this is a very appropriate time to remind everyone of her predecessor, Victoria Woodhull.

Woodhull’s storied career, public service, and style of activism have always been near and dear to VenusPlusX especially because she was a sex futurist of unparalleled accomplishment.

Unconventional even among the suffragettes she led, Woodhull was nominated by the Equal Rights Party in 1872. As soon as that happened she was excoriated in the press for colorful past and her belief in free love. Two hundred years ago (and 50 years before women were given the right to vote), free love and sexual freedom, didn’t mean what they do now. The call for free love by Woodhull simply sought to allow women to be able to choose their husbands and to divorce their husbands. How tame.

Here are some good places to learn more about this sexual freedom hero.

Victoria Woodhull Ran for President Before Women Had a Right to Vote

The Strange Tale of the First Woman to Run for President: Before Hillary Clinton There Was Victoria Woodhull

Victoria Woodhull was a spiritualist, activist, politician and author who was the first woman to run for the presidency of the United States.

We need more visionaries like Woodhull, and a modern Equal Rights Party would be a refreshing alternative to the elephant and donkey of modern politics.

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  Victoria Woodhull was the first woman nominated to be US President was originally published on VenusPlusX | English

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Science and Sex

Poking around VenusPlusX’s Library recently, I rediscovered many “papers” Dan Massey wrote. They were not posts, just part of the infrastructure holding together our concept of cosmic destiny and the critical, central role that our sexuality plays in finding out, for each of us, what our personal destiny is.

Much of this work is tagged with our term, Transhuman Erotic Freedom, to describe this destiny-sexuality connection. Combined with a 10-part series, A Course In Immortality, these works constitute the Appendices of a forthcoming book on this subject.

The somewhat technical/scientific approach to some the work in the Library reflects our stipulation that things cosmic, spiritual, or otherwise not of this world, our emotions for example, are substantiated only with some rigorous scientific standards. It’s not a matter of needing proof; it’s a matter of showing proof.

Unknowables can be figured out, even this cosmic-erotic connection to which we’ve devoted 40 years of our work.

Take for example, in the provocative and prescient, I Am an Intersex Bisexual Transgender and So Are You: A thought experiment in the development and socialization of gender, Dan dissects exactly why confusion and conflict still exists.

“This discussion demonstrates that the social conventions of sex, gender, and normativity are highly simplified and basically very ignorant ideas. It is amazing that they have persisted to the present day. This seems to have resulted from a basic unwillingness to apply rational analysis to the development of appropriate social models and to abandon obviously outmoded models of reality.

“The manifold difficulties human society experiences in dealing with matters concerning sexual orientation and gender identity (SO+GI) as a broad class of related medical and social issues stem directly from a failure to apply critical observation and rational thought to evidence at hand. And this problem does not begin with either the SO or the GI issue, but rather with the basic biology of sexual differentiation.”

The paper goes on to provide equality activists with the science behind the issues they are advocating for. It’s another tool for your tool belt.

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  You can easily access our Library along the top menu of our home page.

Science and Sex was originally published on VenusPlusX | English

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NetrootsNation 2016 Wraps Up

Reminder to everyone that this year and every year, Netroots Nation offers all of the keynote addresses and various workshops, via lifestream and video, for progressives who are unable to attend.

I was lucky enough to be here all week, starting with the pre-conference NetrootsConnect LGBT.

St. Louis is a troubled city trying to do better in a purple state. It struck me as a very southern city, in pace and overripe hospitality, but with a clearly liberal bent. All of the conference hotels were unionized.

Here are some highlights with lots of links to full session videos.

Thursday’s opening plenary was revolutionary, a true sea change for Netroots Nation. Since last year’s conversation shifting action by Black Lives Matter which disrupted a candidates plenary, Netroots executives have heard and learned from people of color how important their voice is and how helpful to progressive causes their voices can be. This Week In Blackness was at the helm and featured local and national organizers from Ferguson and around the country who are working to resist, empower, and build the movement against America’s system of policing. It was the perfect setting (and time) to school a largely white and entitled audience needing to hear that their commitment to black liberation can’t be turned on and off. It’s a matter of life and death: it must be on all the time.

“You all are worried about living in Trump’s world, well I have been living in Trump’s world.” Tef Poe, hip hop artist and co-leader of Hands Up United

You can watch a video of the plenary, “Climate Justice Strategies: Exploring the Intersections of Climate Change,” a panel that included with NextGen Climate’s Tom Steyer, the NAACP Environmental and Climate Justice Program’s Jacqui Patterson, Green for All’s Michelle Romero and Environmental Action’s Anthony Rogers-Wright.

Saturday morning’s keynote with Rep. Jan Schakowsky, Pamela Merritt, Laura Jimenez, Aimee Thorne-Thompson and Lizz Winstead focused on the state of abortion access and reproductive justice. They spoke about their work, what’s at stake, and how to move from celebrating compromise as victory to winning.

A high point was during the first afternoon session on Saturday when workshops were disrupted to call on all NN16 participants to walk with local Hands Up United and Black Lives Matter activists for a die-in at the Old Courthouse—where the Dred Scott case was heard. After that, we marched again and shut down I-64 for 15 minutes.

Lizz Winstead is a beloved humorist and Daily Show writer. Her organization, Lady Parts Justice, is definitely one you should $upport. She and LPJ were part of each day’s events and succeeded clearly in putting their organization on everyone’s radar. “LPJ is a cabal of comics and writers exposing creeps hellbent on destroying access to birth control and abortion.” They support clinics, keep them open with benefit shows, and volunteer at these clinics as they travel from city to city.

You can watch yesterday’s closing plenary, anchored by Representative Keith Ellison (D-MN5) who gave a rousing speech, calling for action and unity. The session also included Equality Florida‘s Carlos Guillermo Smith, who gave us everything we needed to know about the Orlando shootings and its aftermath. Smith is currently favored to win his election to Florida’s state house. I was lucky enough to have dinner with him last night, thanks to a few friends. This young man is someone to watch.

At the end of this closing we heard from Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton who announced via video message that during her earliest days in office she intends to push for a constitutional amendment overturning Citizens United, and promised to bring law enforcement and communities together to develop national guidelines on the use of force and committing to target $1 billion in her first budget to take on implicit bias. A bunch of Bernie supporters stood with their backs to the monitor but she was otherwise cheered enthusiastically.

A good time was had by all. As usual, we learned a lot. It’s a good time to register for NetrootsNation 2017 in Atlanta; registration just opened at about 50% of what it will be next spring. You can see a lot through live streaming and videos but being there is worth saving for. Also, as usual, the Dan Massey Transleadership Scholarship Fund will be offering free registrations for deserving local (Atlanta) student activists of color.

By the way, all of my DC Statehood friends were thrilled to see what made it on the credential badges of all 3000 attendees this year.

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NetrootsNation 2016 Wraps Up was originally published on VenusPlusX | English

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Who would you nominate for a US Truth and Reconciliation Commission?

Nominations for the US Truth and Reconciliation Commission will be needed. A commission like this, used so successfully in South Africa and Germany, is something transactional justice lawyers and activists have been calling for as the only solution to the dilemma of racial unrest we are experiencing.

These commissions are made up of stakeholders from all points-of-view who come together in a extra-judicial forum because they are not about punishment, just truth and reconciliation. It is through these commissions, and the whole of society’s experience of them, that we can come together as a nation with a set of solutions so we never return to this horrible place.

A good measure of today’s unrest is the compounding and lasting effects of the racism of our nation’s founding as the first ever constitutional police state. The First Peoples (90% of whom were exterminated), families kidnapped into slavery, and today’s modern enslavement of people of color through mass incarceration and judicial malpractice all must be fully reconciled.

Photo by Pete Prodoehl Flickr/creativecommons

Representatives of and actual victims of our country’s racism are the first to sit down. Next they will be joined by experts in obvious areas such as economics, psychology, the law, etc.

But who would you like to see leading this commission or taking a seat to help it succeed?

I nominate President Obama.

Who would you add?

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More on reconciliation . . . 

    Who would you nominate for a US Truth and Reconciliation Commission? was originally published on VenusPlusX | English