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Gayzette Denver retracts Benjamin Paige article attacking trans youth

   

UPDATE: RETRACTION ISSUED. FULL TEXT BELOW.

Benjamin Paige of Gayzette Denver made a bid to become the official spokesdouche of gay male bigotry toward trans people with a remarkable column about a young trans person in the Denver area. His March 2008 “Homo-razzi in the News” column item titled “7 Year Old Transvestites in Public Schools” was accompanied by mocking images and included some incredibly graphic sexual speculation about this child and her parents.

[quotation removed by request]

This kind of inflammatory bullshit creates the climate that leads to violence against LGBT children. TransYouth Family Allies has been working very hard to keep the situation in Denver calm, and this kind of nonsense from gay male bigots does nothing to help.

[image of article removed by request]

UPDATE: RETRACTION ISSUED

“7 Year Old Transvestites in Public Schools” – RETRACTION Statement Issued

After receiving feedback from the Colorado GLBT community today, the gayzette has retracted the article from the pages of their online edition, and issues the following statement:

“Please accept our sincerest apologies in regards to the Homo-razzi article that was published in our March, 2008 issue.  The Homo-razzi feature that is meant to be humorous in nature, did anything but achieve ‘being funny.’ The article instead was hurtful, hateful, and distasteful, and should never have reached our printed pages. 

We are, and will continue to be supporters of the GLBT community and do not think of our own as second class citizens, nor are we ignorant to the issues that members of our transgendered community face.  With this being said, and as the publisher of the gayzette I do take full responsibility for the publications content and will act appropriately in addressing this issue.

I have been in contact with Kate Bowman, Board Chair of the Gender Identity Center of Colorado.  She has advised me of the concerns of the transgendered community in regards to the article, and I will continue to work with her in the future to promote messages of diversity within our community.

We have taken immediate action by retracting the article from our online edition and accompanied by our deepest regrets; plan to do the same in our next printed issue.
In addition, I have offered the Gender Identity Center of Colorado, a free full page, full color advertisement which will be printed in our April issue. Also in the coming weeks we plan to work with Kate Bowman in locating a transgendered columnist to provide our community with a regular-monthly T-feature, that will soon appear within the pages of gayzette.

By taking these actions, l assure the Transgendered community that we at the gayzette stand by your side in the fight for equality. This will never happen again.”

Please accept our sincerest apologies,

Rich DeMarah
Publisher
gayzette
720-435-8914
rich@gayzettedenver.com
http://www.gayzettedenver.com

And just to clarify that Colorado isn’t solely a breeding ground of nasty backwards rubes like Benjamin Paige, Professor Lynn Conway points to this uplifting article released last month about a Colorado family whose transitioning child has had support from their community.

The Imperial Court of the Rocky Mountain Empire, where Ben Paige is listed as Corporate Development officer, has stated they are aware of this matter and have policies in place which will be used to address this. For further updates on this story, see this page in Lynn’s trans news updates.

image

Second Nature: The story of a local family raising a little girl born in the wrong body
By Maximillian Potter
5280 Magazine
March 2008


This is talk, not advice. See Terms of Use for details.
Posted by Andrea James on 03/06 at 12:01 PM

Sometimes the most bigoted, transphobic crap comes from gay people.  I’ve heard this personally and from other gay columnists such as Dan Savage (who I otherwise love). Most gay people are just ignorant and that’s fine but when they spew bile to demarcate us from them to make themselves look better, it’s sick. 

There is no LGBT “community”.

Posted by  on  03/06  at  05:54 PM

I believe there’s a core community which understands that we have many overlapping issues which must be addressed through a unified voice. However, as with any large group, there is great diversity of opinion and background among us. While there’s room for all voices to be heard, it’s important to address things like this that do nothing but create division and animosity. I am very pleased that this publication listened and took action. This poor child and her family in Colorado have been through enough.

Posted by Andrea James  on  03/06  at  06:10 PM

I have been writing about trans kids lately (no relation to transkids.us LOL) on my LiveJournal:

http://justanormalgirl.livejournal.com/tag/children

Perhaps some of this might be interesting.  Most entries in my LJ are friends-only but I made this public so you could read them.  If you have a LiveJournal, I can friend you.

Posted by  on  03/06  at  06:51 PM

I observed a recent exhange of harsh words between the Women Born Transsexuals (WBT/HBS) community with the pre-op transsexuals (which WBTs presumed are just transvestites) and transgenders and I believe a separation between them should be in the boil.

Likewise, sexual identity and sexual orientation had always been two separate entities, and it may (just may, based on the issues with ENDA) come to a point that the LGBs would be leaving out the T. Such blatant separation for me would be illogical, considering many transsexual females have female partners and identifying themselves as lesbians and so do transsexual males, something in which the article had burried over.

This tirade by Benjamin Paige all but confirms that some people who are comfortable with their homosexual orientation just do not agree, and has serious issues with transsexualism and changes in sexual identity. Homosexual men are in the end the ones that are proud of their sex organ (you would notice that Benjamin Paige had almost half his article mentioning about it, and a sign saying ‘I love my penis’wink. However, unknown to him (and ignored), we do know we are born mutated in that position between our legs since we were young.

For that, I find it offensive that he target his bigotry on a 7 year old and her family. Many of us, like me, would had wished for such support from our own parents. Most of us would have given anything to have started our transitions this early before the disgusting side effects of the opposite puberty hits. My disappointment is that the Denver Gayzette failed to impose any recorded penalty on him for his remarks. He is not only parroting transbigotry against the child, he is mocking the very essense of what makes us complete.

Posted by Yuki Choe  on  03/09  at  05:50 AM

my name is ‘Jazmine James’. I am the 29th elected Empress of the Imperial Court of the Rocky Mountain Empire.  I also served as the 27th appointed Princess Royale of the RMCS and held the office of Board President for the 31st reign.  I have been reading all of the different blogs, posts and emails associated with Mr. Paige’s article in the local gayzette in Denver.

During my years as Princess Royale and as Empress I was not out as a transwoman.  I performed as a female impersonator under the name of Jazmine James.  I completed my reign in April of 2003 and begun my transition.  While I served as the President of the Board in 2004/2005 I had identified as a transwoman.  This was not a pracitce that was openly supported by about 10% of the ICRME. 

I finished my year as President despite all of the verbal threats I received from a select few in the ICRME that called me a freak and told me that I needed mental help.  Although these attacks were from a small select few the overall effect was painful.  Once my year as President was completed I stepped away.  Mainly to allow myself the time to find out who I was and what I wanted to do as a woman.  Even though I stepped away the threats of outing me had not stopped so I eventually asked the Board of Directors to please remove my photos from the website as I could not risk my career.  Eventually my request was met but it was after a long hard battle. 

In the past few years the ICRME has had to start to figure out how to adjust with the changes made by me and others who have transitioned.  This adjustment has not been easy.  It has been one that is filled with spite and hate.  Although I firmly believe that 90% of the members of the ICRME are not the hate mongers the problem is the 10% that cause problems a 100% of the time, and the leaders of the ICRME can not seem to figure out a way to put a stop to it. 

When I was President I worked to create a non-discrimination policy for court.  It passed but a policy is only effective when the leaders follow and enforce it.

As for Mr. Paige I know him and have spent time with him.  I was shocked by his comments as he never came across as a person that would ever cast such harsh judgment on a CHILD!!!!!

I am gravely sadden by this entire event and am sadden that the ICRME has not taken quicker action on such an important issue considering the fact that the ICRME is heading into Campaign and will be having two major events between now and mid April. 

I commend you for keeping this issue in-front of the T community and please let me know if I can be a resource of assistance

Regards,

Jazmine James
Empress XXIX
ICRME

Posted by  on  03/14  at  09:24 AM
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