SILENCE = DEATH

[LeftCoast]

An old slogan that I find highly relevant on DU today.

I for one will not be silenced. I will not ever be forced back into the closet.

[Parche]

1. What Were You Doing There In The First Place?

:shrug: :hi:

[LeftCoast]

5. I was young and impressionable and for a short time I believed the lies

Then I looked into myself and saw the truth.

:)

[Creideiki]

23. I was in the military

Had a friend get kicked out--he was one of the first to get the "generable under honorable conditions" types that would revert to honorable after a period of time.

Edit: Then I was able to be open. Then I went into teaching and got shoved right back in.

[Beregond2]

2. Your point being...?

[DarkTirade]

3. ... your point in responding being?

:shrug:

[DarkTirade]

4. Yeah, I find this whole situation a bit odd.

I do understand the desire to keep swarming from making messes... but this was just out of the blue weirdness right here.

[LeftCoast]

6. Odd is one way to put it

[Chovexani]

19. I don't really find it odd, considering the broader context of what's been happening here lately.

I'm only surprised it took this long.

[DarkTirade]

22. I suppose that up until recently I was a bit more optimistic than I thought.

I tend to shy towards realism (i.e. pessimism without the moping), but I guess avoiding GP and GP-P for the most part kept me from seeing some of the trends going on.

[Duncan Grant]

7. I'm with you.

To paraphrase Harvey Korman: The solution to the homophobia at DU is not to lock the threads in the LGBT forum. :thumbsup:

[LeftCoast]

8. I'm glad we're on the same team

:hug:

[galledgoblin]

9. I'm thoroughly confused

so, if I've got this right, we're to alert mods and not respond in any other way?

that's silly, how are people supposed to learn and change their minds without any discussion?

[LostinVA]

11. I don't think they really care if any minds are changed

Or if homophobic/transphobic bigotry is posted. If they really cared about it, then such posts/threads would actually be consistently deleted & punished.

[Bluenorthwest]

10. I have to go back to that thread

And see if the Grand Inquisitor managed to reply to any of the points made to him or her. I doubt it.
If they think some typist can bring silence and a fuzzy atmosphere for the bigots, they don't know who they are dealing with. Larry Kramer taught me how to eat authoritarian thugs for brunch, with a Mimosa and a bong hit, when some folk were still wathcing He-Man cartoons and drooling into their juice boxes.

[mitchtv]

12. well. I will continue being myself

Out and proud. ( and I don't take shit from anyone. Proud White Night Veteran and more)

[catnhatnh]

13. And I was about to snark....

...about not shoving you anywhere.Then your profile showed you to be both ancient and prolific in posting...I am glad to post to your thread and sorry I hadn't met you before.Bring it on-I'm an old straight white guy and find no reason to think leaving you the freedom I was born to and expect somehow hurts me.

[Moloch]

14. Instead of feeding someone's persecution complex...

we should be fighting for gay rights. The fundamentalists are banding together like never before in order to take away marriage rights in California. The polls are showing them with a three-point lead but instead of organizing for our right to get married, we're complaining about a post we don't like on DU. Priorities, people!

[LeftCoast]

15. I don't know about you, but I'm capable of doing more than one thing at a time

And this isn't about one post.

[Chovexani]

17. LOL

I hear the weather by the pyramids is nice this time of year.

[LostinVA]

21. And, you're complaining about people complaining about posts on DU

Priorities, people!

:rofl:

[Moloch]

30. Meh..

I'm not the one comparing a few posts on DU to AIDS.

[LeftCoast]

33. No, but thanks for showing up. You've done more to prove my point than anyone.

:thumbsup:

[Moloch]

36. Your hatred and anger will get you nowhere.

That's why I'm so glad Barack Obama is the Democratic nominee. If he would have ran on hatred and anger, he would have amounted to the same as Mike Gravel. The party, and the world, would do well to follow Obama's example.

[LeftCoast]

37. I'll freely admit I'm angry, but the hatred is all in your mind

Don't be putting that on me.

[baby_mouse]

39. bimble flubber gobbledy OBAMA gibberish mutter...

So that's why you're here, is it?

[Zuiderelle]

41. It's been pretty clear from the posting, that he's not here in support of GLBT issues.

[MuseRider]

44. And it all comes into focus.

Gosh, that sounds almost biblical doesn't it? Worshipful? Wow, never thought it would come to that. :sarcasm:

[DarkTirade]

24. Yes we should be fighting for gay rights.

Funny thing though, our own party doesn't seem to want us to have them.

[Solon]

26. Why the fuck are you still here? Where the fuck were the mods when you posted your transphobic...

shit?

[Moloch]

29. I didn't break any of the rules when I posted what you call my

"transphobic shit." Its that simple. The mods don't exist simply to delete every post that you disagree with. Its time people understand that.

[Chovexani]

31. And this would be the problem, right here, in a nutshell.

It is not a simple matter of disagreement or people posting things "we" don't like.

People have told you repeatedly that the sentiments you post are hateful and ignorant. Multiple people. People who do not necessarily get along under any other circumstances. When a poster continues to post hateful comments after multiple people repeatedly tell them said comments are hateful, it is called trolling and the offender is banned. That is how it works on the tubes.

You're right, the mods don't exist simply to delete every post "we" disagree with. The mods exist to enforce rules. You need to understand that the reason ignorant shit gets left alone is not because it is right, but because the mods do not feel transphobia rises to the level of racism. You skate by because they don't care, because of the avatar next to your name, and because they are privately saying the same things. On any GLBT board on the internet your ass would have been banned a long time ago. Fortunately for you, this board is like the 2008 Neo Democratic Party, where we freaks, trannies and assorted undesirables are swept under the carpet and ignored unless it's fundraising time and Passa needs a Love Offering.

Count your lucky stars, kemosabe.

[baby_mouse]

38. I don;t suppose you could point me in the direction of the offending posts? NT

[Chovexani]

40. Here you go.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=5476176&mesg_id=5478315

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=221&topic_id=70375&mesg_id=70400 (hell, check out pretty much every one of hir posts in that thread)

I'd go looking for more but I just woke up and I don't feel like puking at the moment. Pretty much everything that poster says on the topic is along those lines, with varying degrees of douchiness.

[Zuiderelle]

43. Use the Google search with "trans damkira"... (See inside for some choice morsels of *&^%)

(He likes to use "transvestite" when he knows he is referring to transsexuals.)


"The transvestite movement keeps repeating it over and over again to scare the rest of us. Its time to divorce the transvestites from the GLB movement and move forward."

from: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=221x70375#70556

and this:

"Wow. You're actually outraged... that one person forgot to mention transvestites to a college reporter? If that's a huge crisis, everything must be going pretty well for you."

from: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=221&topic_id=69642&mesg_id=69673

And this:

"Transvestitism was a term coined by Mangus Hirschfield in the early part of the twentieth century to describe a "third sex" or someone who feels that they are mentally a different gender than they are physically. Isn't that what transexuals claim they are? Are you trying to say that transexuals are just men who get a sexual thrill from dressing as the opposite gender?

NAMBLA and the transvestites have both tried to hijack the gay-rights movements to serve their own ends.. to the detriment of the movement. I always thought that people shouldn't have to worry about discrimination in the workplace based on sexual orientation... the transvestites apparently don't think so and tried to sink ENDA and condemn one of the only openly gay members of the House of Representatives as a bigot when he was trying to make a stand for equality. I wouldn't support a gay group who demanded to be tacked onto a bill designed to promote the rights of immigrants. Yet, transvestites and their puppets in the national glbT organizations wanted so badly to sink it. It really is sad that the most vociferous opposition to the bill came not from traditionally anti-gay forces like the fundamentalists but those who act like they are allied with the gay-rights movement. How dare they."

from: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=221&topic_id=69642&mesg_id=69714


And they are so very many more, but I'm getting sick to my stomach reading them.

[baby_mouse]

47. Ah.

Well, that's a quite a bit more pathological than I had suspected. I had thought it might be "Man Coulter" level jockish drivel, but this is in a completely different category.

I shall venture into his/her rather sudden apology thread and see what has happened.

Thank you.

[Duncan Grant]

32. Provocation like yours should get one banned.

Your multiple posts about trans people were ignorant, bigoted and offensive. DU wouldn't allow that kind of ignorance to be posted around here if it were about race and ethnicity (rightfully so). At some point, reasonable people need to come to some agreement about their community standards.

My standards don't include anti-trans sentiment being posted at what is euphemistically called a "progressive" board.

edit: I would also like to add that willful ignorance is indefensible.

[LeftyMom]

35. These rules disagree.

"When discussing race, gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, religion, or other highly-sensitive personal issues, please exercise the appropriate level of sensitivity toward others and take extra care to clearly express your point of view.

Do not post messages that are bigoted against (or grossly insensitive toward) any person or group of people based on their race, gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, religion, lack of religion, disability, physical characteristics, or region of residence."

Your repeated, highly offensive transphobic posts are in clear violation of these rules.

[Zuiderelle]

42. SEE HERE ADMINS!! This is a perfect example of someone who has gotten away with transphobic comments

and has now determined by that lack of deletion and rules enforcement that his hate is acceptable.

[Zuiderelle]

45. It's almost like you're taunting everyone with how much you can get away with.

But thanks for reminding us all how you are one of the ones that has been disparaging GLBT DUers for a while now.

For anyone curious about this poster, you just have to DU-google search "damkira" and "trans"

http://www.democraticunderground.com/searchresults.html?domains=democraticunderground.com&q=damkira+trans&sa=Search&sitesearch=democraticunderground.com&client=pub-7805397860504090&forid=1&ie=ISO-8859-1&oe=ISO-8859-1&cof=GALT%3A%23008000%3BGL%3A1%3BDIV%3A%23336699%3BVLC%3A663399%3BAH%3Acenter%3BBGC%3AFFFFFF%3BLBGC%3A336699%3BALC%3A0000FF%3BLC%3A0000FF%3BT%3A000000%3BGFNT%3A0000FF%3BGIMP%3A0000FF%3BFORID%3A11&hl=en

Here's one of the many in which he insults transsexuals (whom he insists on calling transvestites). In this one he compares transsexuals to NAMBLA:

damkira (1000+ posts) Journal Click to send private message to this author Click to view this author's profile Click to add this author to your buddy list Click to add this author to your Ignore list Sat Mar-29-08 02:21 PM
Response to Reply #10
12. My god.

Because I think transvestites should not be included in the gay, lesbian and bisexual rights struggle I'm transphobic? (That's not even a word!) This reminds me of the era around 2002 when if you criticized bush or the iraq war, you were automatically labeled as "against America"

I have as much right to be here as you, although I wish it were just the GLB forum.

NAMBLA considers itself to be part of the gay-rights movement, too. That doesn't mean it is, or ever should be.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=221&topic_id=69642&mesg_id=69689

Just fucking lovely. And not ever deleted.

There are DOZENS of posts like that still around.

[xchrom]

16. i'm recommending OPs left and right here -- and i'm recommending this one. nt

[LeftCoast]

18. Thanks xchrom

:hi:

[xchrom]

20. you betchya -- and now this counts as a kick. nt

[Book Lover]

25. Act up. Fight back.

Trouble is, that works when there is the hope of reciprocal action. I doubt... well, let me save that for the other thread where posts won't be deleted.

[Rhythm]

27. Not silent for a minute...

We are not the problem...

:grouphug:

[undergroundpanther]

28. bigots and bullies

Hugs right back to you..

I agree with you WE are NOT the problem..bigots and bullies THEY are the problem.Bigots and bullies have ALWAYS been problems in any social setting including online..

It is just as much of a problem when a bigot and bully sympathizer who claims to understand what being a democrat means seeks to force an unreasonable tolerance out of us for the intolerable verbal garbage of bigots and bullies..who may be large donors or buddies to the"right" mods.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

hostility and discrimination against homosexual individuals are well-established facts. On occasion, these negative attitudes lead to hostile verbal and physical acts against gay individuals with little apparent motivation except a ....

strong dislike.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/assault/roots/freud.html
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Don't want to admit you don't like us to our faces, so like cowards you do not remove posts on DU that slur us, like you would racist posts? Do you think we deserve to be bullied on DU? WTF??
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Reports to AI indicate that sexual, physical and verbal abuse frequently occur together. Sexual and physical abuse by law enforcement against LGBT individuals are often accompanied by homophobic and trans-phobic slurs.
http://www.amnestyusa.org/stonewalled-a-report/sexual-physical-and-verbal-abuse/page.do?id=1106607&n1=3&n2=36&n3=1121

Many lesbian and gay young people don't feel able to report homophobic bullying because they feel they won't be taken seriously,
http://www.outzone.org/girldiva/advicepages/bullying.htm
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
How long is homophobia,sexism, trans-phobia, fat bashing,tattoo bashing, and poor bashing gonna be tolerated on DU??
Equality is a CORE democratic principle.

Are you willing to betray CORE democratic principles over a "strong dislike?

if so, go to the bully party, the psychopath party ,your party that wants to get away with abuse,..republican swine.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

[mitchtv]

34. Thanks LC I agree

I find the primaries have left us behind. This is THE politically incorrect forum , we are dispensible, I am old and thick skinned, but I didn't buy into the hysteria, and now we are an inconvenient truth.I am a veteran of the gay rights wara with the movement in the late sixties. They fucked us over then and plan to do it again. I remember a saying we used to have: "Get fucked , strate boy". I get pushed to the back of the bus, and you can be sure I will rock it.

[trickyguy]

46. An old (since the 80's) slogan but a very good one.

And I find myself still saying at times "Silence equals death".

And it seems to be the best thing to define the moment. Because it defines many moments, some gay, some not.

We shouldn't forget it. Ever.