Welcome to our weekly round-up of the most infuriating bits of news from the past seven days. We'll be providing a retrospective on the most heinous, crazy-making bits of anti-LGBT news that came across our radar last week. Our hope in doing this isn't only to darken the skies, but also to sound the alarm about the kind of idiocy that passes for "legitimate commentary" these days. Expect a healthy dose of snark in the following paragraphs — sometimes it's the only way we can get through the day.
5. Blue Is The Warmest Color Director Threatens To Sue the Women Carried His Film's Story
Abdellatif Kechiche, the French-Tunisian director of the critically acclaimed lesbian drama Blue Is The Warmest Color sounds like a peach. And when I say "peach," I mean he sounds like a control-hungry beast who probably thinks he could have told the lesbian love story better if he'd just played all the parts himself.
Last Wednesday, Kechiche took his bellyaching to a new level, when he wrote an open letter to Blue's stars threatening legal action if they continue to criticize his "methods," which reportedly included shooting 10 days straight of sex scenes, and a fight sequence that was so real that actor Adèle Exarchopoulos was genuinely sobbing — with snot running down her face and all — by the time the director finally called "cut." The entire shoot lasted for a grueling five months to produce the almost-three-hour film.
But according to a scathing letter Kechiche published on the website Rue89, star Léa Seydoux is an "arrogant, spoiled child," who should apparently be punished with legal action. Kechiche also takes aim at a French newspaper that allegedly critiqued his masterpiece (that's his ego, not the film, to be clear) — proving that he's all for freedom of expression, as long as that expression is directed explicitly by him, and never holds any opinion that's contrary to his own.
4. Conservatives Hate the New Marine Hats Because They're Girly, A.K.A. Weak and Awful
As Comedy Central's Stephen Colbert brilliantly lambasted in the segment below, there's an awful lot of hand-wringing over a slight redesign of the hats worn by members of the U.S. Marine Corps.
Truth be told, I'm having trouble finding much of a change in the "redesign," but Colbert's satirical take-down brilliantly illustrates the misogyny and homophobia behind the criticism that the hats are "too girly."
Because to be "girly" means to be weak and worthless, right? And there are DEFINITELY no female Marines who would fly in the face of this sexist conventional wisdom, right? Like Colbert says, we may as well be arming our Marines to go into battle wearing armor made from tampons. And while we're at it, let's change the Corps' classic "Hoo-ah" rallying cry to the more appropriate, feminine, "ooh, aawww!"
I hope you losers run into a nice lady-Marine who'll show you just how "delicate" she and the other women fighting for our country really are.
Find more outrage on the following pages.
3. Brittney Griner's Alma Mater Amends Sexual Conduct Code to Call Any 'Non-Marital Sex' Deviant
Baylor University, the alma mater to out WNBA star Brittney Griner, reportedly amended its "sexual conduct code" to remove an explicit reference to "homosexual acts" last week.
But the Christian university's student government really just approved a change in text, that is still far from affirming — or realistic behavior expectations for hormone-riddled 20-somethings who are away from home for the first time.
Instead of outright condemning "homosexual acts," the new revision simply prohibits "non-marital consensual deviate sexual intercourse." Because if there's one way to make hot, exploratory sex in college sound unappealing, Baylor has just uncovered it.
2. Jelly Beans and Bigotry
It's almost time to celebrate the year-end holidays, and I, like many, sometimes turn to the (admittedly overpriced) sweet snack that are Jelly Belly jelly beans. I have fond memories of hoarding the "strawberry daiquiri" and "margarita" flavor as a child, thinking I was sneaking some sort of grown-up alcoholic beverage.
But after news broke that Jelly Belly's chairman of the Board, Herman Rowland Sr., donated $5,000 to a campaign aimed at repealing California legislation protecting trans students, I'll be swearing off the sugary shapes, and would encourage you to do the same.
Rowland donated thousands to a campaign that unironically calls itself "Privacy for All Students," while simultaneously advocating the government policing of teenagers' genitalia. I wish that were hyperbole.
When California made history in August as the first state to enshrine in law the belief that transgender students have a right to access the bathrooms, locker rooms, sports teams, and gender-segregated facilities that correspond with their gender identity, I was thrilled.
I was less surprised when several right-wing groups, including the Pacific Justice Institute and the National Organization for Marriage, launched an effort to stall the law's scheduled January implementation in hopes of putting the bill before voters in November 2014. The transphobic assholes behind the campaign openly acknowledge that as far as they're concerned, any trans child that uses the same restroom as a cisgender (nontrans) student is "inherently harassing" that student simply by… breathing the same air? This transphobic hysteria always seems to focus on the supposed virtue of innocent adolescent girls, allegedly being "harassed" by fellow students who the bigots say are men masquerading as women. But if these haters are so concerned with what goes on in a girl's bathroom, it seems to me they haven't bothered stepping inside a ladies' room in any high school in the country. First off, there are stalls, so the trumped-up allegation that trans students would be inclined to expose their junk doesn't even hold up, since regardless of how one does their business, in the women's restroom it's done behind a closed door. If you have students peeping over or under bathroom stalls or whipping out their genitals willy-nilly, that's a disciplinary issue, not a gender issue.
Oh and also — THAT. DOESN'T. HAPPEN. There are precisely zero documented instances of trans kids harassing, spying, or otherwise "violating" cisgender students in the restroom. Probably because trans kids use the restroom for the same reason everyone else does — to relieve themselves, catch a glimpse of their gorgeous face in the mirror, and to chat with friends.
And the most outrageous story the past week is…
1. This is Why Americans Are Terrified of Transgender Six-Year-Olds
This op-ed at our sibling site The Advocate asks a question that is at once disheartening and confounding. In it, activist Leela Ginelle asks why, exactly, Americans are so afraid of transgender children. Using Colorado first grader Coy Mathis as a perfect example of our collective cultural conniption over kids who don't fit the gender binary, Ginelle points out that children shouldn't have to sue their school for the right to use the bathroom. (See previous page.)
But while Mathis won her case — and the right to potty at her Fountain, Colo. elementary school — there are countless adults who are determined to make sure other kids like Coy remain as isolated, marginalized, and misunderstood as possible.
And now, one transgender 16-year-old who also happens to live in Colorado is struggling with thoughts of suicide because of the public, false and downright malicious campaign of a group that claims to be "Christian."
Even after its claims of "harassment" were soundly debunked by the school superintendent, The Pacific Justice Institute doubled down on its transphobic rhetoric, claiming that the teenager was "inherently harassing" her schoolmates simply by using the same bathroom.
Trans advocate and blogger Cristan Williams reported that the girl has been placed on suicide watch after unethical reporters published the minor child's name.
It's ironic and tragic that these right-wingers don't see the hypocrisy inherent in their blatant harassment of an innocent child. Not only are the claims they're propagating false, they are intentionally, maliciously, and continually trying to destroy the lives of trans kids around the country, simply because these wingnuts don't think the kids have the "appropriate" genitals.
And if you're thinking this was just a one-time attack, and that the bigots will learn from their angerous mistakes? Don't.
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