Category: Memphis Gaydar

Imagine if you could turn the world gay — your boss, your friends, that hot guy (or gal) down the street. That’s the premise of this Tom Gustafson musical film inspired by Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

In the film, Timothy (played by Tanner Cohen) is cast as Puck in a school play. While studying the script, he discovers a secret recipe to create the play’s magical pansy hidden within the text. The pansy gives Timothy the power to turn his town gay, starting with his rugby jock crush (can you blame him?).

See what ensues in this Outflix screening of Were the World Mine at Studio on the Square on Wednesday, June 17th at 8 p.m. Tickets are $9 and they’re available at the Memphis Gay and Lesbian Community Center (892 S. Cooper).

This story highlights some of the LGBT discrimination research by University of Memphis professor Sharon Horne. It ran in this week’s Memphis Flyer, but if you didn’t catch it there, here it is:

While training to become a pharmacy technician, Memphian Ellyahnna Hall was denied several positions. In one of the interviews, Hall was told that she wouldn’t be hired because she was a transgender woman.

“They told me they wouldn’t know how the other employees would feel about working with a transgender person, so they couldn’t hire me,” said Hall, a slender African-American male-to-female trans woman.

Though the new county ordinance designed to protect lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) county workers wouldn’t have helped Hall, her story is an example of the job discrimination LGBT people face throughout Memphis and Shelby County.

At a County Commission meeting earlier this month, University of Memphis professor Sharon Horne presented findings from her 2006 study that showed 25 percent of LGBT Tennessee residents had reported discrimination in housing, services, or employment based on their sexual orientation or gender identity.

“Our Tennessee discrimination numbers are right in line with the national percentages of discrimination,” Horne said.

That counters a claim made by Shelby County commissioner James Harvey during the recent discrimination ordinance debate. Harvey claimed that a study by the Williams Institute, a think tank at UCLA School of Law, found no LGBT discrimination complaints in Tennessee.

“Tennessee is not listed in this report, so we don’t have any issues here,” Harvey said.

The report Harvey cited only looked at the 21 states that already have laws in place protecting LGBT people from workplace discrimination. Tennessee has no such law and therefore was excluded from the study.

“To be fair to Commissioner Harvey, he didn’t have our data until the County Commission meeting,” Horne said. “But there’d be no reason for statistics to show up in Shelby County before this ordinance passed. If you went to a lawyer with a complaint, they’d tell you there was no recourse for you.”

According to Horne’s studies, which are based on online survey results, 39 percent of gay men and 23 percent of lesbians in Tennessee have reported workplace discrimination.

“In general, there’s greater discrimination against gay men,” Horne said. “Some straight men have a harder time accepting gay men than they do [gay] women. It’s definitely stigmatized for men to be perceived as more feminine.”

According to data from the 2000 census, gay men also tend to earn 10 to 32 percent less than straight men.

“The median income for [same-sex] couples is 15 percent less than that of married men, which goes against the stereotype that gay men tend to be rich,” Horne said.

The University of Memphis study did not include any data on discrimination against transgender people, but the Williams Institute found that about 60 percent are unemployed because they cannot find jobs.

Though the county resolution protecting gay and transgender workers doesn’t extend to private businesses, Jonathan Cole with the Tennessee Equality Project believes it’s a start. Next, the gay rights group will be working on getting the same protections for Memphis workers.

“The city has a draft of an ordinance before them, and now we’ll go forward with that,” Cole said. “This whole debate has really sensitized the community to the need for workplace protections for LGBT citizens.”

My follow-up story on evidence of LGBT discrimination in Tennessee (using stats provided by University of Memphis professor Sharon Horne) will appear in the Memphis Flyer that hits stands tomorrow, but Horne provided me some additional numbers that didn’t make it into the story.

According to Horne’s study on “Gay Men in Dual-Career Couples”:

25 percent of gay Tennessee residents reported being told offensive jokes about lesbians, gay men, or bisexual people by their co-workers or supervisors.

32.1 percent of gay Tennessee residents reported that in their workplace gay employees fear job loss because of sexual orientation.

Tell that to Constance Houston, the citizen who claimed “There is no discrimination here in Memphis. None, whatsoever” during the public comment period at last week’s county commission meeting.

Students at both Memphis City Schools (MCS) and Shelby County Schools (SCS) will now have access to online information about lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) issues, thanks to an American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) lawsuit filed against two Middle and East Tennessee school districts.

The lawsuit, filed just over two weeks ago, addressed the use of computer filtering software provided by Education Networks of America at both Nashville Public Schools and Knox County Schools. The software, which blocked access to the websites of national LGBT groups, is used by about 80 percent of the school systems in Tennessee, including MCS and SCS.

As of Thursday, June 4th, schools using the Education Networks of American software will now have access to the websites of Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG), The Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network, the Human Rights Campaign, Marriage Equality USA, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, and Dignity USA (an LGBT Catholic organization). The software continues to block gay chat rooms and adult-themed websites.

The issue was first brought to the ACLU’s attention by Andrew Emitt, a high school student from Knoxville. He’d been attempting to research LGBT scholarships on school computers, but was blocked access to certain websites. The ACLU filed suit on May 19th in the U.S. District Court of Middle Tennessee.

The filtering software is required in public schools according to state law, but it is intended to block students from obscene or harmful information.

Just as yesterday’s Shelby County Commission hearing on a GLBT workplace protection ordinance was set to begin, gay rights activists got word of a tragedy.

Last Wednesday, Terron Taylor of Whitehaven shot Kelvin Denton, a transgender woman, in the nose and throat after he learned that Denton was a biological male. As of press time, Denton is in critical condition at The Med.

The shooting occured at the Peppertree Apartments in Whitehaven. Taylor was arrested Friday and is being held on a $500,000 bond.

Two transgender woman — Duanna Johnson and Ebony Whitaker — were murdered last year, and another — Tiffany Berry — was shot in 2006.

In a nine-to-four vote Monday afternoon, the Shelby County Commission passed a substitute non-discrimination resolution that removed the phrases “sexual orientation” and “gender identity or expression.”

The new resolution, proposed by Commissioner Sidney Chism, instead offers protection from discrimination against any Shelby County government employee on the basis of non-merit factors.

“I don’t want the county government to discriminate against anyone, but I don’t want to give special privileges to any one group,” said Chism.

According to county attorney Brian Kuhn, the new resolution will still offer protection to gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgender people. But if challenged, those investigating complaints would have to refer to Monday’s Shelby County Commission records for proof that the ordinance does apply to sexual orientation and gender identity. Since the ordinance was changed to a resolution, it does not need to go through the three readings required by an ordinance.

Before the meeting began, every seat in the commission’s chambers was filled and some ordinance supporters were turned away at the door. A few were allowed in later as seats became available. Nearly 50 people spoke both in favor and against workplace protections for the GLBT community.

One man in opposition to the original ordinance compared homosexuality to pedophila and beastiality, igniting jeers from much of the audience. A number of religious leaders came out in support of non-discrimination protections for gay county government workers.

Among them was Rabbi Micah Greenstein: “This is not a gay issue anymore than racism is a black problem. Gays should not be held accountable for the discrimination against them. It’s the rest of us that should held accountable for bigotry.”

Those voting in favor of the resolution included commissioners Steve Mulroy, Henri Brooks, Sidney Chism, Deidre Malone, J.W. Gibson, Matt Kuhn, Joe Ford, Mike Ritz, and James Harvey. Against the resolution were Wyatt Bunker, Mike Carpenter, Joyce Avery, and George Flinn.

After the meeting, Will Batts, executive director of the Memphis Gay & Lesbian Community Center said he was pleased with the passage of the resolution as a first step.

Said Batts: “I’m satisfied based on the discussion that happened beforehand, even though the resolution doesn’t explicitly state ‘sexual orientation’ or ‘gender identity.'”

“Equal rights, please! Equal rights, please!” chants the crowd of hundreds gathered outside the steps of Cooper-Young’s First Congregational Church.

“Scream it loud enough that they can hear you at Bellevue Baptist Church!” yells Shelby County Commissioner Steve Mulroy, the sponsor of a non-discrimination ordinance that would protect gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender workers in Shelby County government.

The crowd at Sunday’s Unity Rally is gathered in support of Mulroy’s ordinance, which will go before the Shelby County Commission for a vote on Monday afternoon. Currently, there are no local, state, or federal laws to prohibit an employer from not hiring or firing someone based on his or her sexual orientation or gender identity.

Supporters wave signs reading “Work for Equality” and “End Workplace Discrimination.” Joining Mulroy on First Congo’s steps are ordinance supporters State Senator Beverly Marrero and former Shelby County Commissioner Walter Bailey.

“The intent of this ordinance is solely to level the playing field,” Bailey tells the enthusiastic crowd. “Employees shouldn’t be judged on their sexual orientation, but their job performance. That’s what counts.”

About 20 opponents of the non-discrimination ordinance, most of them Baptist pastors, gathered last Tuesday for a press conference outside the Shelby County Building. That opposition rally paled in comparison to the hundreds of rainbow flag-waving, sign-bearing participants of Sunday’s support rally.

“We make last Tuesday’s press conference look like nothing, don’t we?” Mulroy says, igniting cheers from the crowd.

The ordinance failed in county commission last Wednesday, after several commissioners cited religious reasons for not supporting workplace protections for gays. However, the full commission will vote on the ordinance Monday afternoon. The meeting begins at 1:30 p.m.

Hello and welcome to the Flyer’s new home for gay rights news, events, and other topics of interest to the LGBT community and their straight allies.

With the crazy drama going on at the Shelby County Commission over a non-discrimination ordinance protecting gay, lesbian, and transgender county workers, it seems the perfect time to launch Memphis Gaydar.

I’ll be sure to provide coverage of the impending outcome of the county’s vote on the ordinance Monday afternoon, as well as coverage of an LGBT Unity Rally to be held Sunday afternoon at 1 p.m. on the steps of First Congregational Church at 1000 S. Cooper.

Last Tuesday, Commissioner Wyatt Bunker held a press conference outside the Shelby County Building, in which various fundamentalist pastors slammed the gay community for demanding special privileges with this non-discrimination ordinance. Apparently, Steve Gaines (of Bellevue Baptist) and company think homosexuality is a choice.

At one point, Gaines even used the phrase “homosexual brutes” to describe the gay community. Others, such as William Owens of the Coalition of African American Pastors, harped on the use of the phrase “civil rights,” claiming his offense to people equating gay rights issues with the African American rights struggle in the 1960s.

But at least one gay man in the audience was standing quietly, taking the pastors hurtful words to heart. He wrote a pretty touching letter to the Memphis Flyer. Check it out (it made me cry a little bit):

Response to Pastors’ May 26th News Conference (Part 1)
What It Really Means to Be Gay

That’s what my being gay is about. It is so much more than how we are sexually intimate with each other. To portray focus your speech so much on sex is to disregard and denigrate who we are to ourselves and to each other. It misleads others to believe that our lives are incomplete and one-dimensional. I don’t expect this letter to change your mind, beliefs or values. I just wanted to let you know that you are missing out on so much of who we are when you allow yourselves to focus on just one fraction of being gay.