From www.phoenixnewtimes.com
Originally published by Phoenix
New Times 2005-12-22
©2005 New Times, Inc. All rights reserved.
The Crying
Game
Despits a celebrated history, Native American Transgenders struggle
in the modern world.
By Joe Watson
joe.watson@newtimes.com
Friday, December 16, 2005 (SF Chronicle)
Defendant in Gwen Araujo case pleads guilty to voluntary manslaughter
Henry K. Lee, Chronicle Staff Writer
-- In a dramatic turn, the fourth
and final defendant charged with killing Newark transgender teen Gwen Araujo
three years ago pleaded guilty today to voluntary manslaughter and will
be sentenced to six years in prison. Jason Cazares, 25, whose
two trials in the slaying led to deadlocked juries and mistrials, entered
his plea this morning at the Hayward Hall of Justice. He will return to
court Jan. 27 for formal sentencing. In September, a jury convicted
Jose Merel and Michael Magidson, both 25, of murdering Araujo in October
2002 by beating and strangling her after learning that Araujo, with whom
they'd had sex, was biologically male.
Merel and Magidson face sentences of 15 years to life in prison
in the slaying, which occurred during a party at Merel's house. The
defendants buried Araujo in a shallow grave in the Sierra foothills.
Jurors spent weeks deliberating during the second trial in
Araujo's
slaying before revealing that they were deadlocked 9-3 in
favor of a second-degree murder conviction for Cazares. But they rejected
allegations that the slaying was a hate crime stemming from Araujo's
gender orientation. Some jurors believed the defendants killed Araujo
simply to "cover up a situation that had gotten out of control," Juror
Max Stern told The Chronicle in September. The first trial
ended after 10 days of deliberation in June 2004 when the jury deadlocked
on the charges against all three men. A fourth defendant,
Jaron Nabors, 22, who led police to Araujo's body, pleaded guilty in 2003
to voluntary manslaughter in exchange for testifying against his friends.
He is expected to receive an 11-year prison sentence.
Doe vs. KS Update
Here is a statement from KS spokeswoman
Ann Botticelli:
The silence from the 9th Circuit Court continues,
which means that one or more of the Appeals Court judges wants
to seriously consider our request for a rehearing of the 2-1 panel
ruling handed down Aug. 2.
If you are asked about our case, remember this excerpt
from the ruling upholding our policy issued by U.S. District Judge
Alan Kay: "This case involves exceptionally unique
circumstances involving a private school, which receives no federal
funding, with a remedial race-conscious admissions policy to rectify
socioeconomic and educational disadvantages of indigenous Native
Hawaiians resulting from the influx of western civilization."
Catch Dee Jay Mailer, Kawika
Alfiche and myself on Solid P.O.I. radio in December
Speaking of Hawai'i-friendly media: this
Sunday, Dec. 11, Kawika Alfiche (the kumu hula/musician
who was instrumental in helping with the Aug. 20 SF march to the
Ninth Circuit) will be on Pa'ahana and Joseph's talk show "Solid
P.O.I." - "Positions On Issues" - out of Las Vegas, Nevada.
I'm supposed to call in half way through and "talk story" with Kawika
on air about the historic event. That's THIS
Sunday, from 5-7 pm Pacific Time. Log onto www.solidpoi.com, click on link to KLAV am1230, then click "ON AIR"
to listen in. You'll also get the chance to hear
some of Kawika's music from his amazing CD "Na Lei" which is
making a big splash all over Hawai'i, the continent, and Tahiti.
And the following Sunday, Dec. 18,
you can hear Kamehameha's wonderful CEO Dee Jay Mailer
on Solid P.O.I. These are great opportunities for folks on
the continent to learn about the issues affecting our people, so please
tune in and spread the word!
If you are in Southern California....
Please save January 21, 2006 for an
'Aha Kuka at the Carson Community Center from 10am-2pm. I'd
like to see the broadest participation possible since members of
Hawai'i's Congressional delegation will be here for the event, as
well as representatives from OHA and Kamehameha Schools. These
ongoing legal attacks against public and private resources
intended for kanaka maoli must continue to be addressed in the spirit
of lokahi. So please come -- this is the next big event for kanaka
maoli in California -- don't miss it! (more info
to follow)
Mele Kalikimaka
Finally, I'd like to wish you
all a wonderful Christmas and New Year's with your 'ohana and friends.
I have so many blessings to count when I reflect on 2005 --
and each and every one of you who I've met this year (whether
on-line or in-person) is at the top of that list.
Me ke aloha pumehana o 'Iesu
Christo,
Noelani (Loo) Jai, KS '83
('dat housewife from Huntington
Beach)
Red AIDS Bracelets We
Have AIDS Awareness Bracelets. Show Your Support Today! www.YellowRubber.net
Modern-day nádleeh: Gay, bi
and transgendered Navajos share their hopes and struggles
By Cindy Yurth, Soecial
to the Times
In many ways, Pernell Sam is a traditional Navajo woman.
She makes a mean batch of fry bread. She's fluent in her
language. She knows every inch of the red mesa behind her family's
home in Many Farms, where she used to herd
sheep as a boy.
You read that right. In one way, Sam
is not so traditional. Or perhaps she is. The 29-year-old
transgendered woman, who runs her own cleaning service, considers
herself a nádleeh - a man taking on the role of a woman.
In the Navajo creation myth, the nádleeh
went with the men during a period when the sexes decided
to separate. They helped the men to survive by doing the cooking
and other tasks traditionally assigned to women. In traditional
Navajo society, members of this "third gender" had an
accepted place, helping with the child care, cleaning and cooking.
There was also a fourth gender, the dilbaa' - women who took the
masculine role.
According to Wesley Thomas, a Navajo
assistant professor of anthropology, gender studies and
international studies at Indiana University-Bloomington,
the concept of nádleeh is not well understood among
younger Navajos - and by
"younger," he means people under 75.
"The nádleeh was, in my research
work, an asexual being who was specifically placed and
existed only within the Navajo religious sphere," Thomas
emailed from his office in Bloomington. "This made the nádleeh
a gender being, instead of a sexual being."
Nevertheless, the concept of nádleeh
is intriguing to modern Navajos living what are now considered
alternative sexual lifestyles: gay, lesbian, bisexual or
transgendered. The legend of the nádleeh proves, according
to gay Navajo activist Sherrick Roanhorse, that "our traditional
culture recognizes differences and bases more importance on what
an individual can
do for their family and, in a larger sense,
their community."
If people of ambiguous sexuality were
once accepted members of Diné society, that is not
so today. Sam can show you the scar on her back where she was
stabbed during a party not far from her home.
"I guess the guy thought I was coming
on to him or something," she said.
For other Navajo gays, lesbians and transgenders interviewed
for this article, the scars are psychological. At best,
they were the victims of hurtful words at school. At worst,
they tried suicide. And almost everyone interviewed knows of
at least one person who succeeded in taking his own life, unable to cope with the isolation of being
gay on the rez.
"Every time I see an obituary for
a young person in the Navajo Times, I wonder," said "Ian," a 39-year-old
gay Navajo living in Phoenix. "Was it someone struggling with the same kind
of issues I faced as a kid?"
Many GLBT Navajos blame Christianization
for the gradual change in attitudes toward gays over the
years, but Ian said he always felt free to be himself among
his Christian family.
"My grandmother was a Pentecostal
minister," he said, "But my family always accepted me for who I was. I think
more than whether your family is Christian or traditional, it's the individuals
in the family who set the tone. If someone in your family hates gays, that
attitude can spread to the whole family. My grandmother had the real Christian
message: Don't hate."
When Ian went to high school in Gallup,
it was a different story. "I was very feminine. I looked
like a girl, actually," he said, "so I got all the words: 'fag,'
'queer,' 'HIV,' 'AIDS.'"
Fortunately, Ian had had enough support
from his family over the years that he was able to shrug
off the bullying. "I felt sorry for the kids who were calling
me names, actually," he said. "I thought, 'You don't know me,
and you have no idea what you're doing.' I mean, what if you
call someone 'HIV' and they really are HIV-positive? How
would that make them feel? How would
you feel?"
"Luke," a 27-year-old bisexual man
living in Shiprock, was one of the kids "who used to make
fun of the fags" in high school.
"I was one of the macho jocks who
went out for every sport," he said.
Then he went away to college.
"I had an experience with a fraternity
brother, and it was great," he said.
"I never knew I could be attracted to men
as well as women."
Most of the GLBT Navajos interviewed
for this article, though, knew they were different "from
Day One," as "Dale," a 19-year-old freshman at Northern Arizona
University put it. Like many gay teens growing up on the rez,
he found ways to hide his sexual preference.
"At first, I was the kind of kid you
wouldn't even notice," he said. "I did my best to blend
into the wall. Then I did the complete opposite and got into
everything - sports, Spanish Club, studentbody government, you
name it. When I hung out with my male friends, I'd see a pretty
girl walk by and say, 'Wow, she's hot,'" even though I wasn't feeling
anything at all."
Like most of the gay men interviewed,
Dale isn't "out" to his family yet. "I'm afraid they'd
cut me off," he said. But he has found a community at NAU.
"During my first couple of weeks here,
I talked myself into going to a Gay-Straight Alliance meeting,"
he said. "For the first time in my life, I felt like I had
a home."
Almost universally, college was an
awakening for GLBT Navajos.
Tomasina Grey, a 23-year-old union
organizer living in Albuquerque, knew she was attracted
to women since "about fifth grade," but she tried to "do the
dutiful daughter thing."
"I even got engaged to a man in high
school," she said. "It wasn't until college that I met
other lesbians, and straight people who were supportive of
me being a lesbian, and felt like it was OK to be who I am."
Navajos who moved off the rez to Albuquerque,
Phoenix, Santa Fe and other southwestern cities found a
solid network not only of GLBT folks, but of GLBT Natives.
Nativeout.com, a Phoenix-based online support group and information
clearinghouse, offered a chance to chat and to organize. At
the University of New Mexico, there was until recently a class
offered on "Two-Spirits," a modern term adopted by GLBT Indians
based on some North American tribes' belief that homosexuals
are blessed with two spirits, male and female.
(The term doesn't resonate with some
Navajos. "In our culture, if you have two spirits, you'd
better find a medicine man, because it means you're possessed,"
said Mattee Jim, a transgendered woman living in Gallup.)
For many young Diné, it wasn't
until they went away to college and started studying their
own culture that they learned of the nádleeh.
"I actually laughed at the stories,
and thought someone had made them up within the last couple
of years," said Herman Larry, a 21-year-old student living
in Tucson. "When I was growing up, there were no folklores of other
homosexuals running around the forest or stories of the nádleeh."
Most young Diné GLBTs found
the stories encouraging. Jim has gone as far as to forego
female hormone injections and surgery, in solidarity with
the nádleeh of old.
"I would love to have breasts and
soft skin," she said, "but they didn't have access to those things (hormones
and surgery), so I figure I can live without them."
Just when many young Navajo homosexuals
were learning that they have a traditional place in their
culture, the Navajo Nation Council dropped a neutron bomb
on the gay community: the Diné Marriage Act of 2005.
Passed overwhelmingly this past spring
over President Joe Shirley Jr.'s veto, the act allows the
Navajo Nation to recognize only marriages between a man and
a woman.
It was, in the words of one young
gay man, "a slap in the face out of the blue."
Luke, who has political aspirations
himself, was furious.
"They say they're for traditional
family values, but in the same year they passed a law decriminalizing adultery,"
he said. "Is adultery between heterosexuals more moral
than a gay couple in a committed relationship?"
Thomas, the anthropology professor,
says legislating marriage at all is blatantly un-Navajo.
"The Navajo form of marriage was only acknowledged by the
local communities and not the whole Navajo Nation," he wrote.
"We all should be ashamed of ourselves in buying into the enforced
doctrine of Western acculturation and assimilation."
Some GLBT Navajos blamed themselves
for not lobbying harder against the act.
"We let the urban Indians fight our
battles for us," said Jim. "Where were the rez queens?"
Whatever the case, the law was passed,
and most of the GLBT Navajos interviewed for this piece
say they feel less welcome on the rez than ever.
"I haven't been home in over a year,"
admitted Dale, who hails from the Ganado area. "Even the
way I dress now, I don't think I could get away with it on
the rez."
While some GLBT Navajos think things
may be getting marginally better for young gays on the
reservation, others are pessimistic.
"There's still no one for them to
talk to about these things, no support network," said Luke.
"Although people still practice the traditional religion, the
moral and religious climate on the reservation is mostly dominated
by Mormonism and fundamentalist Christianity, neither of which
are
known for being friendly toward gays."
Jim said she's observed effeminate
men being accepted during traditional ceremonies, but not
elsewhere.
"Almost every ceremony you go to,
you'll see a couple of men helping make the tortillas or whatever," she
said, "and everyone is laughing and talking and getting along fine. But
as soon as the ceremony is over, you walk out into the world and the name-calling
starts again. And it's some of the same people who were laughing with you
at the ceremony."
Grey said it will be the Navajo Nation's
loss if something isn't done to stem the diaspora of GLBT
Diné.
"We have a lot to offer," she said.
"Most of us are successful professionals, with good jobs.
Most of us have gone to college.
"In our traditional culture, the nádleeh
were thought to have healing powers," she continued. "What
if the next great Navajo medicine man is locked up in a closet
somewhere? What if we're the ones to heal our culture? What
if we're the ones to restore our religion?"
www.NativeOUT.com
Hawaii: LGBT youth ward abuse suit will go forward
Christopher Curtis, GAY.COM/PlanetOut.com
Network
Wednesday 23 November, 2005
A federal judge ruled Monday that a lawsuit
accusing the Hawaii Youth Correctional Facility of abusing
its LGBT wards would proceed in court. In September, the
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Hawaii filed the lawsuit
claiming that guards and an administrator at the Hawaii Youth Correctional
Facility (HYCF) harassed a lesbian ward, a male-to-female transgender
ward and a boy who some of the facility's staff believe is gay.
The lawsuit asserts that state officials
knew about the alleged abuse and did nothing to stop it.
A registered nurse practitioner at the facility told state
lawmakers that guards repeatedly insulted the girl, telling her
she would go to hell.
The lesbian ward escaped and faces possible
criminal charges. The boy and the transgender ward now live
at home.
Because the three youths are no longer
in custody, state attorneys argued that the lawsuit should
not proceed.
But US District Judge Michael Seabright
ruled against the state on the basis that the youths may
have been hurt during their incarceration, and could likely
face future sentences in the facility. Deputy Attorney
General John Molay told the Hawaii Star-Bulletin he was disappointed.
"We do not believe that the rights of these plaintiffs were
violated," Molay said. "We have interviewed our (youth corrections
officers), and they have denied the allegations."
ACLU attorney Lois Perrin called the
ruling an important step. "The court clearly recognised
that the children have the ability to ask HYCF to enter an
order to stop the pervasive abuse and harassment of lesbian,
gay, bisexual and transgender kids," she told the Honolulu Star-Bulletin.
Paul Cates, an ACLU spokesman, admitted
the national organisation does not know the extent of LGBT
harassment in youth correctional centers across the country.
"Unless we get complaints from victims,
we don't know about this stuff. I do know in California they
have been having a problem. So if it happens in California and
Hawaii, it probably happens everywhere," Cates told the PlanetOut
Network.
The next hearing in the case is scheduled for December
20, 2005.
Bill may include transgender protections includes gender
identity and expression
By Kate Campbell Senior staff writer
campbelldbk@gmail.com.
November 23, 2005
The University Senate task force working
to draft a student bill of rights added a phrase to the rough
draft of the document Monday specifically protecting transgendered
students from discrimination.The inclusion of the phrase “gender
identity and expression” in the bill’s draft follows years of
students’ efforts to formalize specific protection for transgendered
students — those who undergo sex-change operations or identify
and live as a person of the opposite gender — even after state and
system officials denied writing the line into other university documents.
Students had appealed to the University
Senate before to include the phrase in the list of protections
offered under the university’s Human Relations Code. Although
the senate and university President Dan Mote approved the addition
to the code in 2003, the Board of Regents and the state’s attorney
general’s office said the phrase was unnecessary because the
policy already inherently protected transgendered staff and students.
While the administration has since interpreted the code to protect
transgendered students, officials did not add the specific phrase to
the code.
Adam “Gus” Collins, a senior psychology
major and president of the Pride Alliance — a student group
dedicated to supporting lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered
students that recently lobbied for the inclusion of the line
— said including the phrase would give transgendered students a
specific document to reference should they encounter discrimination.
“It sends a strong message to the campus
that students who choose to transgress gender boundaries
and gender norms will be protected by the university,” he said.
Collins also said he hopes it will spur university departments,
such as the Resident Life Department, to revisit their policies
on issues that affect transgendered students.
Under Resident Life’s current policy,
he said, transgendered students who choose to live on the
campus are assigned dorm rooms based on their biological birth
sex, but that conflicts with the gender with which they identify.
At the bill task force meeting, Sara
Jaye Sanford, a junior English and women’s studies major,
member of Pride Alliance and vice president of Feminist Activists
of Maryland, asked that “gender identity and expression” replace
“sexual identity” in the bill of right’s sixth clause. The bill
also lists gender, race, sexual orientation, political affiliation,
physical or mental handicap and relationships, among others, as
criteria under which students may not be denied rights or protections.
The reason for requesting the change
was “sexual identity” was too vague and “sexual orientation”
does not specifically address transgendered students, Collins
said.
“Sexual orientation refers to which gender
people find themselves attracted to,” he said. “Gender identity
has much more to do with how you identify ... It has much less
to do with who you’re attracted to and much more to do with how your
self-concept is constructed.”
Charles Wellford, co-chair of the task
force drafting the bill of rights and a professor in the
criminology and criminal justice department, said the Human
Relations Code is subject to state regulations that would not
affect the inclusion of the phrase in the student bill of rights.
“Here we’re creating our own document,
and at least for the draft I thought it was fair to include
it and others can comment on it,” he said.
Collins said because the administration
has already interpreted the code as implicitly protecting
transgendered students, he does not expect that explicitly adding
the phrase “gender identity and expression” to an official
university document would cause conflict.
Wellford said he could not predict whether
the phrase would encounter resistance in the senate as the
bill progresses toward completion, but noted none of the assembled
committee members raised any objections.
The task force has a Feb. 28 deadline
to submit a draft to the senate’s executive committee. The
bill will go to Mote for approval if the full body senate votes
to support the bill.
Pages
Lanaye
and the cast of Vagaina Dialogues
Queen
Mother House
of Sei
Shelley Roberts
