Prolonged Eye Contact

Important Story for UK Trans People (and LGB allies)

fuckyeahftms:

Some people who keep up with current trans issues may know that an unknown trans man from the UK recently gave birth to a child biologically. It was reported in the Sunday Times newspaper after a journalist got hold of some information from the Beaumont Society.

If the man in question hasn’t stepped forward by now, then he probably doesn’t even want to be identified or talked to about this issue. However, this hasn’t stopped the press, and this anonymous man is now currently being subjected to a horrific, privacy-invading witch hunt by the UK tabloids.

The tabloids have reportedly been hounding trans organizations and high-profile trans people for information on the man’s identity and whereabouts.

The press claim that it is “in the public interest” that this man be identified to the wider public. However, it stands to reason that all they are probably looking for is a sensational story. This is evident by the fact that they obviously have no regard at all for this man’s right to privacy and anonymity.

The interim editor of the tabloid newspaper the Sun has also made some utterly deplorable comments, implying that the trans man should be exposed to the public because of “issues” with NHS funding of our treatment, the “welfare” of the child, and the fact that he could “turn out to be a serial killer”. No, REALLY. That’s the excuse they’re using for trying to force out a vulnerable person into the public eye and potentially putting them at serious risk of discrimination and violence.

What it amounts to is blatant prejudice, and the view that trans people are public property that have no right to their own privacy.

The Sun is acting disgustingly and hypocritically. Just last week, Helen Belcher of Trans Media Watch was invited to speak at the Leveson Inquiry into Press Standards, about the appalling way the press have treated transgender people. The Sun’s Managing Director spoke out in defense of the press, saying that they would endeavour to “mend their ways” when it comes to media coverage of transgender affairs. However, this seems now to be empty words and that the Sun has no intention of treating us any better than they did before.

Offering a cash reward to the public for the outing of a trans person is absolutely revolting, inexcusable and unacceptable.

If anyone living in the UK knows this man and is approached by a member of the media, or really ANYONE inquiring about the story (seeing as the tabloid media are known for using underhand tactics like hacking, stalking and undercover investigation) I urge you: TELL THEM NOTHING. Don’t say a word. You will be protecting a vulnerable person from potentially serious harm.

If you want more information, please read this article, from Pink News, as it has exclusive comments from the Sun editor and information about the ongoing Leveson Inquiry into Press Standards. If you are from the UK, I also please urge you to contact the Leveson Inquiry and also the Press Complaints Commission about this. Their contact information can be found on both websites.

Thanks for reading and spread the word. This horrible violation of privacy must not stand.

What.the.fuck.

stfuhypocrisy:

Anti-Abortion Harassment and Violence Still Stifle Access

Originally written by Eleanor J. Bader for On The Issues Magazine.

When retired clinic owner Patricia Baird-Windle contacted me in 1998 and invited me to collaborate with her on a book about anti-abortion violence in the U.S. and Canada, the challenge was daunting and the task enormous. Six people had already been murdered: James Barrett, Dr. John Bayard Britton, Dr. David Gunn, Shannon Lowney, Leanne Nichols, and Dr. Barnett Slepian — and arson, bombing, butyric acid attacks, stalking and vandalism were regular occurrences at clinics throughout the country.

In the 18 months it took to conduct our research, we met countless providers whose homes had been surrounded by anti-abortion zealots — often with billboard-sized pictures of allegedly aborted fetuses — and whose children had been taunted at school. We also heard about glued locks, shrill picketers, hateful graffiti and blocked entryways at health centers across the country. To a one, the accounts were humbling — and inspiring —and form the crux of Targets of Hatred: Anti-Abortion Terrorism, published by Palgrave in 2001.

Although the book focuses on the victims of fanatical anti-abortionists, it also includes analysis of the anti-choice movement. The varied strategies they employ — the National Right to Life Committee works to change state and federal laws while more militant activists opt for sabotage and menace — illustrates the tag-team approach that has long been operative.

I’d love to report that these methods are no longer used and that things have improved in the decade since the book’s release, but they haven’t. Instead, clinic buildings and the people who work in them remain targets, and the virulent hatred of a small cohort of Christian fundamentalists remains fierce. Indeed, the anti’s scorn for women who terminate unwanted pregnancies and for those who help them remains ironclad.

Decades of Abuse Reach Middle School Girl

Although the clinic blockades of the 1980s and early 1990s, called “rescues” by anti-abortion activists, are fewer than they used to be thanks to 1994’s Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act [FACE], the ever-present threat of violence remains a fact of life for providers. Hate mail, both snail and electronic, and harassing phone calls, including the blocking of telephone lines, occur with alarming regularity. And, of course, the 2009 assassination of Dr. George Tiller in his church lobby provides a grim reminder of the antis’ willingness to stop abortion by any means.

What’s more, the idea that abortion clinics are dangerous places — a conclusion many reach after hearing about aggressive “sidewalk counseling” and turbulence — has tainted the procedure and has led to a reduction in the number of providers from 2,042 providers in 1996 to 1,793 today. The end result is that U.S. women now have less access to the procedure than at any time since the Roe v. Wade decision was issued 39 years ago.

According to The Guttmacher Institute, virtually every state limits who can have abortions and when they can have them. Nineteen states, for example, include fallacies about the procedure in mandatory pre-operative counseling. Among the messages: there is a link between abortion and breast cancer, and women who have abortions have significant long-term mental health problems post-surgery. That neither of these statements is true is apparently irrelevant. Furthermore, 25 states require the woman to wait at least 24 hours between hearing the pre-surgery lecture and actually having an abortion, and 33 offer no Medicaid coverage for the procedure.

Then there are the Targeted Restrictions on Abortion Provider laws — yes, the acronym is TRAP — that regulate everything from hallway width to garbage disposal. Clinics see these laws as a type of psychological warfare, and note that constantly changing rules apply to no other type of ambulatory health facility and do nothing to improve patient safety.

Small wonder that clinicians are often on edge, not only worried about violence but also stressed by the slow, relentless scrutiny of all things abortion related. They understand that the agenda of the antis — making it harder for providers to offer services and for patients to access them — works hand-in-glove with the sub rosa activities of the most brutish arm of the movement and means they can never let down their guard.

Todd Stave, a businessman who owns Germantown Reproductive Health Services in Maryland, a clinic started by his father, Carl Stave, more than 30 years ago, got a taste of the antis’ present-day wrath last spring after he hired Dr. LeRoy Carhart, a highly-respected, long-time provider from Nebraska — and a former colleague of Dr. George Tiller — to offer first- and second-trimester procedures at the health center. As soon as news of Carhart’s arrival reached the antis, they mobilized, urging Stave to fire Carhart and close the center. They also contacted the condo association where Germantown Reproductive Health Services has been located for 19 years and pushed it to cancel the lease. This action was followed by a week-long protest in August that was orchestrated by Operation Rescue’s Troy Newman. Then, when these tactics failed, they took things further, showing up at the Robert Frost Middle School in Rockville, Maryland — where Stave’s 11–year-old daughter is a sixth grader — on the first day of the 2011-2012 academic year.

“My name was not mentioned on their gory signs, and I only found out about the protest later when the Rockville Patch and other blogs reported it and mentioned me by name,” Stave says. On September 8, the antis showed up for Open School Night with pictures of Stave on their signs. “People saw the picture of me as they were walking in and thought I was running for office,” he laughs. “But this turned out to be the tipping point. The signs got everyone energized to fight back. By that point I’d received about 25 anti-abortion phone calls and 100 emails. The people could not have been nicer when they contacted me. They were the most polite people I’ve ever spoken to and clearly believe they have my best interests in mind. I compiled a list of callers and emailers, created an organization called Voice of Choice, and got volunteers to phone the people who’d reached out to me, making sure to politely let them know that we know their names, their kid’s names, and where they live, just like they did when they contacted me.”

Unsurprisingly, Stave reports that the antis have stopped calling and writing him. Nonetheless, they continue to picket the clinic, harass patients and staff, and denounce Dr. Carhart.

Entangling Providers in False Complaints

According to Vicki Saporta, executive director of the National Abortion Federation , Stave’s treatment is more rule than exception and she quickly cites two incidents that occurred in 2011 to underscore the need for constant vigilance. In the first, a fire began after a Molotov cocktail was flung at a Planned Parenthood in McKinney, Texas. In the second, 63-year-old Ralph Lang was apprehended in May, shortly before setting out on an anti-abortion shooting spree. Thankfully, he was discovered in a Madison, Wisconsin hotel room after his gun accidentally dislodged. Subsequent to being collared by police, Lang confessed to being in town “to lay out abortionists because they are killing babies.” His first target would have been staff at a Planned Parenthood office.

“Last summer Operation Rescue also started dumpster diving,” Saporta continues. “They are looking to see if there’s anything they can find to trigger an investigation or make it harder for clinics to operate. In one place they got the name of the clinic’s waste disposal company and then pressured them to stop picking up fetal remains. The clinic had to find another company to do the pick-up. In Texas, New Mexico, and Maryland, they’ve filed bogus complaints against clinics with the environmental board and health department. Each time they do this, it takes time and energy for the clinic to answer the complaint. The antis understand that the state always has to do due diligence and investigate, even if the complaint has no merit.”

What this means is that even in the absence of overt violence, the emotional toll caused by anti-abortion pressure is enormous. What’s more it extends beyond the clinic into the community. Clergy are not immune, says Rev. Rebecca Turner, executive director of Faith Aloud, a St. Louis-based prochoice and pro-LGBTQ group. “When Bill Clinton called abortion a tragedy, no one spoke out and said, ‘no, it’s not.’ The Right has been very successful with their messaging, and the message that abortion hurts women has worked. Instead of only focusing on ‘it’s a baby not a choice,’ people hear legislators talking about women’s grief and pain. They see the message reinforced on billboards and through other media outlets and it sticks. Rather than concluding that it’s the stigma that hurts women, they blame abortion.”

Turner’s work as a pastoral counselor and trainer helps women understand that there is nothing in the Bible condemning abortion. “I ask people to think about Jesus,” she says. “He never shamed women. He never told women they were going to hell.”

Still, with 4,000 “crisis pregnancy” centers located throughout the country, the anti-abortion message is everywhere, and its constant repetition lodges in our heads like a bad jingle, even when we know better.

What’s more, hundreds of anti-abortion legislators — some of whom got their start in Operation Rescue’s 1991 Summer of Mercy, a seven-week protest that led to the arrest of more than 1,700 people for trespassing at Wichita clinics — are now serving on state legislative bodies. In 2011 alone, their efforts led to the passage of 83 anti-choice bills, including the requirement that women have sonograms — and hear descriptions of the fetus or see the footage — before having an abortion.

Patricia Baird-Windle, my Targets of Hatred co-author, used to complain about “termite tactics,” the slow, relentless, whittling away at rights that were considered inviolate in the years immediately following Roe. Nearly four decades later, the termites have done their damage. Despite working overtime to keep the havoc at bay, clinicians and activists know that the foundation of the reproductive justice movement is tottering. The only solution is radical, bold action — sit-ins, civil disobedience and mass demonstrations — in defense of liberty, justice and gender equity.

*pregnant people, not just women. This is absolutely terrifying.

(via prochoicegeneration)

Follow up to post about 17 year old girl deceived by fake clinic

So this post has gone viral in a way I never expected! I’ve been following the notes and I noticed people thought this might be a hoax. I edited the original with the ETA below, but because few people are reblogging it from me directly anymore because it’s branched out so far I’m making a separate post hoping people will see this.

********************

ETA: Some people in the notes were wondering about the veracity of this story so I found the original source (the citation above was all that was given at the website I got this from). Here’s some more quotes from the original story:

We [Planned Parenthood] have obtained permission to share some of the remarks the patient and her family wrote soon after their encounter with the CPC.

“I have been getting phone calls [from the CPC volunteer] at home and on my cell phone, and they came to my work… saying ‘we will come get you and throw you in a car and take you to a place that is safe.’  I made my decision [to have an abortion].  Even though I had talked to [the CPC person] before, she has no right to be giving out information about me [and my family].  They need to quit harassing me and my family and loved ones.  They have come to my home banging on my door and non-stop calling me.  I have heard racial comments about my boyfriend [and me].  They keep yelling my name, my mother’s, and my boyfriend’s.  They have no right giving out my information, and they need to respect my and my boyfriend’s decision. … They are trying to trap me but this is my decision and no person has forced me and I would like them to stop harassing me, my family, my boyfriend, and my work.”

Her mother added:

“These people have given [our personal contact] information to someone at [my daughter’s] school.  Now it seems even the students know certain things and are giving my daughter and her boyfriend a hard time as well.  Also, the faculty has heard things, too.  These people [the CPC personnel] have been standing outside Planned Parenthood yelling obscenities at all who enter.  My daughter’s, her boyfriend’s, and my name have been yelled out for all to hear.”

ETA #2: You might also be interested in this post I did awhile ago on more recent investigations of CPCs and their deceptive tactics.

Fake “Clinic” Cons 17-Year-Old Girl

An Indiana mother recently accompanied her daughter and her daughter’s boyfriend to one of Indiana’s Planned Parenthood clinics, but they unwittingly walked into a so-called “crisis pregnancy center” run by an anti-abortion group, one that shared a parking lot with the real Planned Parenthood clinic and was designed expressly to lure Planned Parenthood patients and deceive them.

The group took down the girl’s confidential personal information and told her to come back for her appointment, which they said would be in their “other office” (the real Planned Parenthood office nearby). When she arrived for her appointment, not only did the Planned Parenthood staff have no record of her, but the police were there. The “crisis pregnancy center” had called them, claiming that a minor was being forced to have an abortion against her will.

The “crisis pregnancy center” staff then proceeded to wage a campaign of intimidation and harassment over the following days, showing up at the girl’s home and calling her father’s workplace. Planned Parenthood’s clinic director reports that the girl was “scared to death to leave her house.” They even went to her school and urged classmates to pressure her not to have an abortion.

The anti-choice movement is setting up these “crisis pregnancy centers” across the country. Some of them have neutral-sounding names and run ads that falsely promise the full range of reproductive health services, but they dispense anti-choice propaganda and intimidation instead. And according to a recent article in The New York Times, there are currently more of these centers in the U.S. than there are actual abortion providers. What’s more, these centers have received $60 million in government grants. They’re being funded by our tax dollars.

http://www.ppaction.org/ 
Planned Parenthood Action Fund, 24 April 2006

[Emphasis mine. Hear that folks? We are funding terrorists with our tax dollars. The fact that this is legal is absolutely mind-blowing. And when we dare complain, they cry about how they’re being persecuted and censored unfairly, and we’re infringing on their freedom of speech. No, just no. This should not be fucking allowed.]

ETA: Some people in the notes were wondering about the veracity of this story so I found the original source (the citation above was all that was given at the website I got this from). Here’s some more quotes from the original story:

We [Planned Parenthood] have obtained permission to share some of the remarks the patient and her family wrote soon after their encounter with the CPC.

“I have been getting phone calls [from the CPC volunteer] at home and on my cell phone, and they came to my work… saying ‘we will come get you and throw you in a car and take you to a place that is safe.’  I made my decision [to have an abortion].  Even though I had talked to [the CPC person] before, she has no right to be giving out information about me [and my family].  They need to quit harassing me and my family and loved ones.  They have come to my home banging on my door and non-stop calling me.  I have heard racial comments about my boyfriend [and me].  They keep yelling my name, my mother’s, and my boyfriend’s.  They have no right giving out my information, and they need to respect my and my boyfriend’s decision. … They are trying to trap me but this is my decision and no person has forced me and I would like them to stop harassing me, my family, my boyfriend, and my work.”

Her mother added:

“These people have given [our personal contact] information to someone at [my daughter’s] school.  Now it seems even the students know certain things and are giving my daughter and her boyfriend a hard time as well.  Also, the faculty has heard things, too.  These people [the CPC personnel] have been standing outside Planned Parenthood yelling obscenities at all who enter.  My daughter’s, her boyfriend’s, and my name have been yelled out for all to hear.”

ETA #2: You might also be interested in this post I did awhile ago on more recent investigations of CPCs and their deceptive tactics.