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0ct.25-Nov.7,2013 Vol28 Nol3
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charlotte
NEWSALLIAfCE
charlotteobserver.com/1166/
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The Charlotte Observer
editor's note
by Matt Comer :: matt@goqnotes.com
A treatise on progressive change for
Charlotte's LGBT community
upcoming issues;
11.08.13: Holiday Gift Guide
Advertising Space Deadline: Oct 30
112Z13: Life, Positively
Advertising Space Deadline: Nov. 13
4 qnotes Oct. 25-Nov. 7.2013
Mecklenburg County moved forward
with LGBT-inclusion on Oct 15, finally adding
employee protections on the basis of gender
identity and expression eight years after it
added similar protections for sexual orientation.
The 6-3 vote is a victory, no doubt
Advocacy from groups like the Mecklenburg
LGBT Political Action Committee (MeckPAC)
and from individual members of the community
helped mark that achievement
While it's clear the majority of our leaders
understand the need for non-discrimination
protections, what also became clear during the
meeting was the realization — at least to me —
that we still have a long, long way to go before
we can say our larger community has been
adequately educated on issues affecting LGBT
people and, in particular, issues around gender,
gender-identity and transgender people.
The causes are many, but chief among
them, I believe, has been Charlotte's lack of pub
lic dialogue, activism and awareness-building
on important LGBT issues. Mecklenburg County
commissioners should be applauded for their
political courage—for agreeing to take these
issues on in public votes at the dais. Public
votes by elected officials create opportunities
forthe community to engage in dialogue. Yes,
sometimes those conversations are harsh and
rough. We witnessed as much on Oct. 15, as
slurs and insinuations flew from our opponents
and even friendly and well-intentioned lead
ers used phrases like "lifestyle" or honestly
questioned what it really isto be transgender
as sponsors of the policy revision struggled to
give even the most basic of responses. (A friend
said the debate contained some of the most
discriminatory language he had ever heard.)
The same level of conversation has not hap
pened at City Council, where we've missed at
least two opportunities to have important public
dialogue on issues like employment protections
for sexual orientation and gender identity. I've
long pushed for Council to vote publicly from the
dais on issues like these.
But, conversation can do more than
change policies; it can change culture. We
may be making significant policy progress,
but movement for our local political and social
culture has been stalled for quite a long time.
It will never move again, or if it does, only very
slowly if we don't begin to engage in the kinds
of dialogue, education, activism, advocacy and
reconciliation that are important tools to shape
aiid change culture.
On this journey toward conversation and
education, I believe we must begin to understand
concretely several important concepts and begin
to undertake several important initiatives. Some
ideas to get us started listed below. It's lengthy,
but it's important, so I hope you'll stickthrough it
Reality, not fantasy
First and foremost, we must fully invest
ourselves in reality and stop this fantasy-thinking
that allows us to pretend that Charlotte is
something it's not We're making progress, sure,
but that progress, at least at the city level, has
only been mostly achieved in the past four years.
That's not a shining history of progressive politi
cal leadership and courage.
We must understand the true, unvarnished,
unbiased and un-whitewashed history of our
local LGBT and larger Civil Rights Movement
LGBT advocacy in Charlotte has been a hard
road — one for which we've been judged
harshly, even as recently as last year (think: 1996
and "Angels in America"). The harsh reality is
that the larger Charlotte community really isn't a
"progressive" place. What seems like "progres
sive" culture is merely the deceptive veil of a
conservative laissez-faire mindset—you do
your thing. I'll do mine. That's great until folks
start thinking theirthing is discriminating against
and silencing others.
We and our surrounding suburbs are the
home of Billy Graham, the president of the North
Carolina Baptist State Convention, the speaker
of a reactionary, anti-LGBT and racist North
Carolina House of Representatives, an inter
nationally-known anti-gay leader who counts
among his associates a radical evangelical who
advocated anti-gay genocide in Uganda, a local
base of followers (including elected leaders)
who revere a national hate group and religious
leader who calls gays "beasts" and Jews
"Satanic" and too many other anti-gay churches
and leaders to count.
We are also the home of leaders like Bill
"Your son's a homo?" James and Karen "Gay
Bowel Syndrome" Bentley. We often laugh at
their throwback bigotry. But, dear friends, your
neighbors have elected them to office; what
does that say about how they view you? Don't
think for an instance these all-too-present and
all-too-vocal anti-LGRT leaders and organiza
tions don't have an effect on LGBT people's lives
— legally, economically, socially, religiously and
more. They do, every day, mostly lived out si
lently by people who, unlike me and other mostly
white, mostly male LGBT leaders, don't have the
privilege of voice, leadership and status.
Civic engagement
The work of changing political and social
culture cannot rest with one organization
alone. Since the late-1990s, MeckPAC and its
volunteer members have worked hard to move
our city and county forward. Where they have
fallen short is in lobbying and education — a
failure for which we can hardly blame them.
Lobbying and education is hard work and it's
probably best if it's full-time and paid. But, we
don't have that luxury here. If we seek to truly
change local culture, local LGBT organizations
will have to unite and rally. Non-profit organiza
tions that purport to lead our community must
put aside their irrational fear of the "political"
and engage themselves when necessary and
appropriate in civic conversations for change,
working publicly, strategically and collabora-
tively with MeckPAC.
Intentional inclusion
LGBT organizations in Charlotte have done
a phenomenal job at including and welcom
ing transgender members of the community.
I'd dare say that we've done better than other
LGBT communities across the state and nation.
Yet, we lack visibility from transgender people
in the leadership of our community. A handful
of names rise to the top —the late Pamela
Jones, activist Janice Covington, current LGBT
Community.Center Chair Roberta Dunn. But, we
need more. Just as we hope that LGB leader
ship reflects a diversity of age, gender and
race, we must work to ensure that a diversity
of transgender people are represented among
our organizations' leadership ranks. Where
are ourtrans people of color, trans men, and
trans youth? We must work with intention in our
inclusion efforts; many of us, myself included,
have failed in some way, in some organization,
in some activity as we watched a room full of
mostly white gay men make decisions on behalf
of others. That will no longer do. It's not enough
to say, "We are here, so come and join us." We
must reach out. We must engage. We must cre
ate spaces where new voices are welcome, not
shunned and shutout.
Self education
We must educate ourselves. It is fully
irrational that we would expect straight allies
— not even to mention our opponents—to
understand the complexities of LGBT people's
lives and needs while many of us still do not
understand these concepts ourselves. We
must commit to providing members of our own
community opportunities to learn more about
ourselves and our LGBT siblings. It's outrageous
that longstanding leaders of our community
would ask people like me and others to explain
to them concepts like queer identity and the
existence of intersex people or that longstand
ing leaders never recognized the harm that
might be done when straight allies — not LGBT
people themselves — lead our movement and
give it their — not our — direction. (For a primer
understanding of the harm that can come from
"moderate" and not-fully-invested allies of
minorities, read Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "Letter
from a Birmingham Jail" and pay particular at
tention to his remarks on "the white moderate.")
These concepts are important and we
can't teach others without understanding them
ourselves. Non-profit groups should commit
themselves to educating their boards and their
staffs. They should attend conferences like the
National Gay and Lesbian Task Force's Creating
Change, plan more conferences and trainings
like the recent Carolina Conference on Queer
Youth or Campus Pride's Stop The Hate Trainings
and host professional LGBT organizers and
educators for panels, lectures and trainings that
are publicized and open to the community.
Advocacy, but also activism
We must learn that activism and advocacy
are not one in the same. They are different,
in both scope and effect, and each have their
place and their purpose. We have advocacy in
Charlotte, but we lack significant activism that
can shape and mold public conversation. The
same non-profits and leaders who must put
aside their fear of "politics" must also make
room to support and encourage grassroots
activism, direct action, civil disobedience, youth
organizing and more.
Becoming allies
We must be allies, instead of only seeking
allies. The same leaders and organizations that
oppose LGB equality, also oppose equality for
transgender people, people of color, immigrants
and women. Just imagine how truly progressive
Charlotte could be if our LGBT community began
to work hand-in-hand with our natural, progres
sive allies, not only for our issues but also for
theirs. Our community missed an opportune
moment to lead with our allies in December
2009, when Bill James struck out with some of
his worst bigotry, attacking gays, people living
with HIV/AIDS and African-Americans. With
the notable exception of two organizations,
see Editor’s on 5