Trans Universe

By Monica F. Helms

I received a phone call from a good friend, Zan Thorton, telling me that Congressman Barney Frank had fifteen disabled people arrested in his office, Tuesday, September 16, 2008, at around 3 PM.  Zan informed me that around fifty LGBT and straight disabled people entered the Congressman’s office around 1:30 PM and asked to speak to him about the housing crisis for disabled people.  They were there representing the Center for Disability Rights.

According to the Congressman’s Chief of Staff, Peter Kovar, the group, several in wheelchairs, came into the office, went right into Congressman Frank’s office and “moved things around” to have a place to sit.  He informed them that they couldn’t be in there and that Frank was about to go to the House floor for a vote.

(more…)

Trans Universe would like to welcome our first new contributing author, Zan Thornton. Zan is a good friend of mine and has been a strong advocate for the rights of Disable Americans, specifically the rights of the hearing impaired for the last 10 years. Zan uses the word “deaf” and says those who are hearing impaired are not offended with that word.

Zan knows American Sign Language and has been an activist in the LGBT community for 30 years. She was one of the people who helped with the highly successful Olympics Out of Cobb Campaign in 1996. Just before the Olympics, Cobb County passed a resolution saying that “‘gay lifestyle’ was incompatible with the community’s standards.”

When the Olympics came to Atlanta in 1996, Cobb County was slated to hold the volleyball venue there. The LGBT community reacted quickly and decisively and after several protests and actions, the Atlanta Olympic Committee finally pulled the event out of Cobb. The county - home of Newt Gingrich at the time - later rescinded that resolution.

Zan served in the Army from July 1982 to July 1988 and is a member of the local chapter of the American Veterans for Equal Rights (AVER.) Her and I met at a chilly Veterans’ Day Parade in 2006, which was the first time the AVER Atlanta Chapter was allowed to march. Some people turned their backs on us or screamed obscenities as we passed by. Several problems occurred again in 2007 when some bigots accused us of showing some public display of affection in 2006. I was wondering how we were able to do that when we were marching in cadence. Paraphrasing Shakespeare, “The (people) dost protest too much, me thinks.”

Welcome Zan! I hope to see some good stuff come out of you. (No pressure.) <giggle>