Details Magazine Stumbles in Addressing Parental Homophobia
February 24, 2010
The recent Details magazine article by David Hochman “Would You Really Be Okay with a Gay Kid?” attempts to convey the insecurities straight fathers today feel about having gay sons. Unfortunately, in doing so Hochman presents a one-sided portrait of gay identity and self-expression that conflates sexual orientation with gender expression and appears to uphold rigid standards of masculinity and heterosexuality even as it seeks to broaden readers’ minds.
While Hochman also includes fair-minded opinions from developmental psychology experts, the article seems to legitimize the discomfort, even homophobia, a handful of anonymous fathers voiced in discussing their feelings about their own sons being gay.
He writes, “You may chuckle when little Leo dons butterfly wings and plays tea party for the third day in a row (hey, it’s just a little gender blurring), but you’re really thinking, No, God, no.” By quoting a series of otherwise-liberal dads, who have no problem interacting with gay people outside of their family but cringe at the possibility of having a gay son, Hochman implies that no parent could ever be pleased to have a gay child.
What seems to be most at issue for these fathers, however, has very little to do with their sons’ actual sexuality and everything to do with their gender expression – a distinction Hochman never directly makes, thereby leaving in tact the stereotype that all gay men are effeminate and all effeminate men are gay. Whereas the article purports to question parental homophobia, it turns out to focus solely on male fears about signs of their sons’ deviation from traditional masculine standards. There is also a notable lack of discussion about their gay daughters.
The original online article also included an inappropriately sexual, and crudely cropped, photograph of a rainbow popsicle entering a child’s mouth on the second page. Details removed the picture after GLAAD called with concerns. Editor-in-chief, Dan Peres acknowledged after further reflection that the image was highly inappropriate and told us it was removed from the online version and won’t make it into print. GLAAD pointed out to Details that the image served only to sensationalize the topic and divert attention from the fathers’ misplaced fears to the children’s sexuality.
In looking at the article as a whole, Details missed an opportunity to discuss the very real problem of parental insecurities around both their children’s sexuality and gender expression. This is the second time in as many months that Details has published a problematic article related to LGBT-identity, following a defamatory piece referring to bisexual women as “hasbians” in January. While the effort to discuss parental distress with gender nonconformity is laudable, the casual tone of the writing and treatment of the subject overshadow the original intention. If the sentiment of the article’s closing line, calling for unconditional parental support, could have resonated throughout, the reporting would have been greatly improved.
We encourage you to contact Details to express your concern about the magazine’s problematic coverage of men’s discomfort regarding the idea of having gay sons.
Related Posts:Anti-Gay Violence Hits Western New York: Causes Community Concern
January 11, 2010
Lindsay Harmon was celebrating New Year’s Eve at Roxy’s, a popular lesbian bar in Buffalo, New York, when passersby began hurling homophobic slurs and someone grabbed her from behind and stabbed her in the right eye and arm.
Hours earlier, in an unrelated incident, a 20-year old gay man was attached by two women who alleged he was gay. According to The Buffalo News, the two women threatened him inside the mall, followed him into the parking lot, pepper sprayed him, kicked him and ultimately robbed him of more than $1,000 in jewelry and cash.
These attacks in Western New York have stunned members of the local community and shined a light on a percolating trend in the region, according to The Buffalo News.
Data from The National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs, a New York City based watchdog for violence against LGBT people and other traditionally underrepresented groups, reported 2,424 victims of bias-motivated crimes in 2008, according to The Buffalo News. The Center does not have numbers specific to Buffalo.
“The biggest problem is getting people to report it,” Tim Moran, publisher of online newspaper Outcome, told The Buffalo News. “The police don’t necessarily tell people what happened,” he continued. Also according to Moran, gays and lesbians are targeted for robberies and other crimes more often than what’s reported.
Buffalo News Reporter Donn Esmonde, in an op-ed, labeled Harmon’s incident the beginning of “a storm of outrage.”
“Thursday, I saw the mark left by hate,” Esmonde wrote referring to his visit with Harmon at her house. “Harmon, sitting in the living room of her father’s home in West Seneca, pulled off the white gauze that covers half of her face. A black line, about 2 inches long, starts at the top of her right eyelid, cuts down through the eyelid and runs across the top of her cheek,” he continued.
In the interview with The Buffalo News reporter Donn Esmonde, Harmon told Esmonde, “It is like the gay community has been attacked,” Harmon told me. “I will not let myself down or other people down. . . . Once I get better, I’ll help with anti-violence rallies. Whatever it takes.”
Local LGBT community members and allies have started a Facebook group to support Harmon and curb anti-gay violence. On Monday, the group claimed more than 16,500 members.
GLAAD is still investigating and will continue to monitor the situation. Joy Darden, 18, and Deonna Burnett, 19, were charged with robbery, grand larceny, aggravated harassment and criminal mischief in the case of the attack on the 20-year old man, according to The Buffalo News. The two could face tough charges if convicted of a hate crime, because of the state’s Hate Crimes Act.
Related Posts:North Carolina County Passes Domestic Partner Benefits Despite Defamatory Comments From Commissioner Bill James
December 22, 2009
The Mecklenburg County Commissioners, last Tuesday, passed a domestic partner benefits policy, extending benefits to the spouses of LGBT city employees and making it the seventh North Carolina county to do so. The new policy will take affect next fall during the open enrollment period.
According to WCSC, the 6 to 3 favorable vote makes “a Mecklenburg County employee who is in a same-sex relationship where both partners live together and share financial responsibilities eligible to receive county benefits for their partner as long as one of them is a county employee.”
Many Mecklenburg County residents and allies said passing the law was about basic equal rights.
“I’m not gay but I believe they have [the] right to feed their family,” said George Dunlap, who continued saying that by not passing a benefits package, it promotes bias and says Charlotte is not progressive, he told reporters.
While the board was split on the policy, the most vocal opposition in the media came from Commissioner Bill James. Commissioner James was quoted calling co-Commissioner Vilma Leake’s deceased son, who was gay, a “homo” and accused Commissioner Leakes of pushing her “agenda.”
The Miami Herald’s Steve Rothaus, reported that Commissioner James even sent e-mails to the local FOX affiliate, in which he defended his defamatory language.
“In justifying her position last night in public, she used her son’s ‘lifestyle’ and his death from HIV-AIDS to justify voting for benefits to allow individuals to use tax dollar to engage in the same behavior that resulted in her son’s death.”
According to 365Gay, Leake’s son was gay and died of AIDS.
Last week, the Mecklenburg Commissioners chair Jennifer Roberts said that her colleague Bill James should apologize for his rants but Commissioner Leake said she doesn’t suspect Commissioner James will.
Journalists have been fair and accurate in reporting on this story and GLAAD will keep monitoring this situation. We urge media to continue shining a spotlight on Commissioner James’ outrageous anti-gay comments.
Related Posts:Problematic CNN Segment Explores Homophobia in “Black Men in the Age of Obama”
November 2, 2009
On October 31, CNN with the help of Essence Magazine aired the first installment of its special, Black Men in the Age of Obama. In addition to talking about higher education, leadership and the struggles that black men in America face, the show also attempted to tackle homophobia in the black community. Unfortunately, instead of talking about crucial issues that black gay men and youth face―employment discrimination, hate crimes, bullying and violence to name a few―the segment was peppered with problematic terminology from some of the guests and lacked the much-needed voices of actual gay men. The conversation was also dominated with chatter about the so-called “down-low,” with insinuations that it is the cause of the AIDS epidemic in black America.
After showing a clip of President Obama speaking in favor of LGBT equality at The Human Rights Campaign banquet, Don Lemon, a CNN anchor asked Essence’s Editor-in-Chief Angela-Burt Murray to speak about the down-low and HIV. She alluded that if the community were to create safe spaces for black gay men to come out, then perhaps HIV rates among women can go down:
It’s time for the African-American community to get real. And that homophobia does exist in our community. We’ve embraced it and the silence is killing us. African- American women, the leading cause of death is HIV. So women, 18 to 34 are being killed because we refuse to talk about this issue and accept gay and lesbian people in our community.
While Murray is right that folks need to “get real” and acknowledge that gay and transgender people exist in the black community and should be accepted, her comments about eradicating homophobia as a means to fixing a public health epidemic are troublesome. Especially since dozens of epidemiological and public health studies have found over and over again, that men who have sex with both men and women are not the driving force behind the rising and disproportionate HIV infection rates among black women.
In fact, just a few weeks ago, The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released findings to a new study that once-again debunked this myth. In an interview with NPR, Kevin Fenton, M.D., director of the National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD and TB Prevention with the CDC said:
It is crucially important to bear in mind that there are a range of risk factors which face black women in the United States today. And the reality is that bisexual black men account for a very, very small proportion of the overall black male population in the United States. Our research suggests that about 2 percent of black men will report being bisexually active.
And, therefore, you need to look at the risk factors which are far more prevalent in the community—having multiple sexual partners with unprotected sex with heterosexual partners, injecting drugs. Those are going to be factors which are far more prevalent in the population and are driving risks.
Ironically, there was no mention of that study or ones that mirror it as a means to counter Burt-Murray’s unsubstantiated comments. There was also no correction made to Farrah Gray, another talking head who claimed that he didn’t know that the down-low was such an issue until he read J.L. King’s book, On The Down Low―an autobiography based on personal experience, not scientific data.
Admittedly, we need to have more public conversations about homophobia in the black community, especially given how prevalent and harmful it is for those who are gay, bisexual and transgender and the struggles that they face when coming out. We also need to have more conversations about the need for black support for LGBT legislation. But in order for these dialogues to be successful and insightful, they need to be grounded less in urban folklore and more in the hard facts. Journalists need to be more responsible and work harder to ensure that the real truth gets told. Because without it, the media is doing way more harm than it is good.
Related Posts:GLAAD Takes Action on Homophobic Headline and Article
November 2, 2009
In the Oct. 18th edition of The Daily Nation, news reporter Mathias Ringa used problematic language to refer to Charles Ngengi and Daniel Chege Gichia, two Kenyans who wed in London, when writing about the Kenyan-governmental committee’s failure to protect the rights of gay and transgender people.
The headline stated: “Law review experts rule out rights for homosexuals.”
In the story Ringa wrote:
“As the debate continues over the same-sex marriage of two Kenyan men in London, the team writing a new constitution on Sunday ruled out enshrining the rights of homosexuals.”
Also in the article, Noor Ali, was identified as a Reuters correspondent and was quoted saying:
“Gay issues are not acceptable in our society and therefore the experts should not waste time on such unnatural acts. How can a Kenyan marry another man when there are many women out there looking for men to marry them?”
GLAAD contacted Reuters, to inform them of the problematic language used in Ali’s quote as well as to encourage them to take action and address this situation. Both in terms of publicly addressing Noor Ali’s anti-gay comments and in terms of working internally that anti-gay attitudes, sentiments, and prejudices are not being publicly endorsed by Reuters’ news professionals.
A Thomson Reuters spokesperson clarified that Ali is an occasional contractor and not a contributor.
“Reuters has more than 150 years’ history of fair and unbiased reporting. Mr. Noor Ali is an occasional contractor for Reuters and attended a journalists meeting in a personal capacity. He does not speak on behalf of our news organization and his views do not reflect our company’s global diverse work force.”
We also contacted The Daily Nation, requesting that they correct the story to omit the term “homosexual,” to change the word “bride” in the photo caption to describe Mr.Chege Gichia, to change “same-sex marriage” to “marriage” and to use Associated Press guidelines. We also requested The Daily Nation publish a follow-up story to balance the reporting in the original piece.
GLAAD is continuing to reach out to The Daily Nation to address these concerns.
Related Posts:Orange County School District Agrees to Mandatory Harassment/Discrimination Prevention Trainings Following Outrageous Incidents of Homophobia and Sexism
September 10, 2009
On Wednesday morning, Newport-Mesa Unified School District in Orange County settled the lawsuit brought against them in March by the ACLU of Southern California for failing to address the hostile environment of homophobia and sexism at Corona del Mar High School, which permitted a particularly vicious verbal attack against one student.
The LA Times reported that in January three football players posted a video on Facebook, in which they voiced anti-gay slurs and suggested sexually assaulting and killing their female classmate, Hail Ketchum, who was playing the role of Mimi in the high school’s version of the musical ‘Rent.’ 600 students viewed the video before it was removed.
An LA Times Blog article published the day that the ACLU filed its suit reported that administrators did little to punish the boys or protect Ketchum, who had to rearrange her class schedule to avoid the boys, one of whom threatened her in person.
According to the Orange County Register, the ACLU stated in March that Corona del Mar High School administrators were “permitting and sanctioning an atmosphere that is hostile to female, lesbian, bisexual, gay, and transgender students in general, and has led to despicable threats of violence against one student in particular.”
While school district officials still admit to no wrongdoing, they did agree to settle the case outside of court. According to the blog GregInHollywood, the terms of the settlement require that the district provide:
mandatory training sessions for administrators, teachers and students that will focus on the harmful impact of sexual discrimination and harassment, as well as on federal law and district complaint protocols to be followed whenever anyone experiences discrimination or harassment based on sex, sexual orientation and gender identity.
The district will also provide a written apology to Ketchum, who is now a freshman at Loyola Marymount University, and agreed to publicly identify herself for the first time on Wednesday.
The LA Times quoted a statement read by her parents at a news conference Wednesday morning, in which Ketchum said:
No one else will have to go through what I went through… I hope the students of Corona del Mar High School will learn from my experience that it’s possible to stand up for what is right and prevail.
GregInHollywood reported Ketchum as saying:
[Those attacks] were disgusting and very disturbing to me personally… But what was really disheartening is that when I complained about them, the administrators did little to deal with them. I’m happy that the settlement provides the school with a road map of how to address situations like this more appropriately.
Schools around the country are struggling to deal with this type of discrimination and harassment every day. Our sister organization, the Gay Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), has been working since 1995 to make schools safer for all students. We recommend several resources they have to offer for school officials, parents, and students alike at http://www.glsen.org/cgi-bin/iowa/all/antibullying/index.html
We at GLAAD will continue to monitor media reports of homophobia and sexism in schools and keep you informed.
Related Posts:Defamatory Ad in Yiddish Newspaper Sparks Controversy, Raises Questions in Brooklyn City Council Race
September 8, 2009
On August 27th, an anti-gay ad published in the Borough Park Yiddish newspaper Der Blatt sparked controversy in the race for the coveted Brooklyn City Council seat in the 39th District. The ad used homophobic language to support candidate Brad Lander.
CityHallNews.com reports that the ad, which Lander has publicly denounced and maintains he did not authorize, praises him as a candidate who “strongly opposes various types of abominations and immoral laws that are major issues in the current elections.” According to the Brooklyn Downtown Star, a professional translator confirmed that the Yiddish word toyvos ‘abominations’ is commonly understood to refer to homosexuality. The Der Blatt ad went on to criticize Lander’s fellow Jewish progressive candidates saying “it would be a desecration in the name of God to support the other candidates who support laws permitting abominations…even if such candidates happen to be Jewish themselves.”
This publication set off a series of reactions from other candidates running for that Council seat as well as LGBT advocates and organizations who were understandably concerned and outraged by the anti-gay content they believed Lander had endorsed. However, Mr. Lander has issued a public statement and confirmed in a letter to the Campaign Finance Board and in several interviews that his campaign team “did not request, see, authorize, approve, or pay for this advertisement.”
Lander told YourNabe.com:
“We had nothing to do with it. It would have been a preposterous thing to do. People in Borough Park know of my support of marriage equality and no one would believe that we would have placed this ad. It could only serve to do me harm.”
Lander’s LGBT support base seems to be standing behind him, despite the allegations, though former-Chairman of the Democratic National Committee Howard Dean did tell The Power, an online organizing network, that he would pull his endorsement of Lander if he fails to condemn the language of the ad. The New York Daily News reported that New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and Executive Director of the Empire State Pride Agenda Alan Van Capelle issued a joint statement Monday morning calling all attacks against Lander unfair, while denouncing the content of the ad itself.
“I know Brad Lander and am confident that he had absolutely nothing to do with the ad,” Quinn said. “I was pleased that he took immediate action to denounce it. Any attempt to use this ad against Brad is just plain wrong.”
Media and blog reports suggest that Der Blatt has a history of using defamatory language to promote certain candidates without approval. Chris Bragg of CityHallNews.com reported that in this case Rabbi Yitzchok Fleisher asked Der Blatt to publish an ad on behalf of Lander, and that the paper responded, “We’ll know what to write.” When Fleisher saw the result of his request, he was “very upset.” Bragg’s article is the only one to point out the striking similarity of the August 27th ad to one which Der Blatt published on June 20th in support of another Council candidate, John Heyer, which also contained unapproved anti-gay language.
Lander, who has been active in the Brooklyn community for many years, has shown a commitment to marriage equality while also building allies in the orthodox Jewish community – a must for any 39th District hopeful, as the area encompasses both progressive Park Slope and the largely Hasidic Borough Park. In an article published before the present controversy, The Jewish Daily Forward reported that Rabbi Ellen Lippman, a “prominent local voice for marriage equality” and leader of Lander’s progressive congregation Kolot Chayeinu/Voices of Out Lives, fully supported his candidacy.
Still, many feel that Lander has not done enough to correct the newspaper’s misuse of his name to promote homophobia.
Der Blatt is expected to print a retraction, and GLAAD will keep you informed of any further reports regarding the publication of defamatory language in relation to the Brooklyn City Council race.
Related Posts:CBS News on LOGO Continues Conversation on Homophobia and Online Gaming
March 20, 2009
As you can see from the video below, the conversation surrounding online gaming and homophobia is continuing to be discussed throughout the media:
GLAAD’s Digital & Online Media Program continues to be heavily involved in these conversations. Staff recently spent two days at the Microsoft corporate headquarters in Redmond, Washington meeting with XBox Live policy officials and enforcers. We were there in order better understand their current gaming policies, suggest and work towards creating new and better policies, and to talk about the issue of homophobia and defamation on their online gaming platform.
We’ll have more in depth details about our trip and the future of our work in this area over the next few days. For now, you can check out our previous post XBox Live, Homophobia, and Online Gaming for more background on the story and issue.
XBox Live, Homophobia, and Online Gaming Policy
February 26, 2009
A post over at The Consumerist has generated a great deal of buzz in the blogosphere today.
From yesterday’s post:
Teresa says that she was harassed by other players and later suspended from XBOX Live because she identified herself as a lesbian in her profile. When she appealed to Microsoft, she says they told her that other gamers found her sexual orientation “offensive.”
The Consumerist also posted Teresa’s letter to them in which she describes the incident. They followed it with:
We’ve heard of gamers being suspended for identifying themselves as gay in their GamerTag, and even one case of a guy whose name was actually “Richard Gaywood” but his tag was suspended anyway because apparently the word “gay” is so offensive that it doesn’t matter if its actually your name.
As far as we know, Microsoft is unwilling to reconsider this position.
The Seattle, WA, based The Stranger had this to say about the situation:
“The story doesn’t entirely add up-mostly because The Consumerist prefers to hit copy+paste than do any research or fact-checking (no user name? no request from Microsoft for a response? hello libel?), but also because the way Xbox Live works, this user wouldn’t have necessarily broadcast her sexual preference as described. But a user can find him/herself temporarily banned if a boatload of people send complaints through Xbox Live’s reporting system…”
The Stranger also noted that Stephen Toulouse, who handles policy and enforcement for XBox Live, updated his twitter feed with this message:
re: the consumerist story. Expression of any sexual orientation (straight or gay or otherswise) is not allowed in gamertags. However we’ve heard from the user base they want that capability, so I am examining how we can provide it in a way that wont get misused. I can’t say any more at the moment, except to say I’m working right now in finding a way to safely express relationship preference.
Since the beginning of this year, GLAAD has been in active conversations with Microsoft, specifically with Stephen Tolouse, about XBox Live and how their policies affect LGBT people. The conversations actually began as a result of work GLAAD did around the launch of Sony’s beta for it’s new online virtual world, Playstation Home.
At the end of 2008, when Sony launched the beta for Playstation Home, we fielded concerns from GLAAD supporters that the system was not LGBT friendly. It was being reported to us that when people used the chat feature and would type in certain words like “gay” or “lesbian”, they would come up as asterisks like “***” or “*******.” Typing and sending “I am gay” would actually send “I am ***.” Also, people found they were banned from using a similar set of words to name “clubs” in the virtual world.
We reached out to Sony and after a series of productive conversations over a few days, changes were made to the system that removed some of these restrictions. Unfortunately, some still remain. And GLAAD remains dedicated to working with Sony to address them.
Back to Microsoft – While researching the Sony issue, we came across many different articles and blog posts from May of 2008 talking about Microsoft and the banning of users and the many restrictions that were affecting LGBT gamers. Wanting to see if any progress had been made since May, we reached out to Microsoft and got an almost instant reply from Stephen Toulouse.
After talking with both Sony and Microsoft, GLAAD began to notice a common thread in both of the gaming giant’s policies – they were both put in place to fight and/or prevent defamation. It sounds counterintuitive to some, and to even us at first, but upon further review and discussion, the issue at hand became clearer.
The online world provides unprecedented anonymity for people. They can, and do, say what they want. Unfortunately, in online gaming that has often translated to homophobic, racist, and misogynistic attacks.
Look at some of these staggering numbers from a survey done in 2007:
88% of respondents said they had heard the phrase “that’s so gay” while 84% said they had heard ‘gay’ used in a derogatory fashion. Over 50% said they felt that games portray gay people in a stereotypical way, while 42% believe gays are under-represented in games. 15% said the industry creates a culture where gay employees “feel like they must stay in the closet”. 52% believed that the gaming community is hostile to gay and lesbian gamers. Only 9% said they “never” encounter anti-gay sentiments from online gamers.
Sony, Microsoft, and many others have been trying to address this by putting policies in place to prevent subscribers from using the online shield of anonymity to harass, verbally assault, and generally defame others. Are they the best policies? No. Are they working to improve them?
In the case of Stephen and Microsoft – they have been nothing but open, welcoming, and willing to discuss ideas for positive and inclusive changes during these conversations. Microsoft has invited GLAAD out to its headquarters in Redmond, WA, for multi-day meetings with developers, executives, and policy enforcers in the upcoming weeks.
As for the rampant homophobia in the online gaming community, GLAAD is also working to address that. In addition to meeting with gaming companies, we’re planning to host a panel discussion early this summer in Silicon Valley. We’ll be discussing the issue and getting feedback from both the LGBT and gaming community about how to fight the defamation and educate users about the impact of their words and actions.
We’re truly in a new era. And with new technologies, come new challenges. LGBT people have fought hard for years to come out of real-world closets – we’re not willing to accept virtual ones.
As GLAAD makes progress, we will be engaging the community in a vibrant discussion and work together to find the best solutions to make online gaming safe and enjoying for us all.
