I took video of the Atlanta National Organization for Marriage rally, August 7, 2010, but because of problems uploading to YouTube, and some personal issues.  This is the first I can share them with people.  There are five videos, and I still have to edit the video I took of the LGBT rally at Woodruff Park, before the NOM rally.

This first one is called, “Atlanta LGBT Community at NOM Rally, August 7, 2010.” On This video, we see the LGBT come together to face the National Organization for Marriage at the Georgia State Capital Building and show their faces to be visible. NOM has a tiny crowd compared to the LGBT Community, as NOM tries to drum up support for their archaic attitudes toward love, marriage and commitment.

With the divorce rate at 50%, maybe straight people should worry about fixing their own marriages instead making a mockery of it. With their bad track record, they shouldn’t be telling others how to run their lives.

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Number 2 is “The Atlanta Speech of Brian Brown, from the National Organization for Marriage.”  Listen to Brian Brown at the Atlanta rally, August 7, 2010. His anger toward Judge Walker on the Prop 8 case and gay people in general shows that he is real scared that what he has been fighting against may just win. It is so interesting to watch people who are on the wrong side of history losing grip on their tedious power structure. I’m glad we caught it on video.

Number 3 is “Interview with Brian Brown, from the National Organization for Marriage.” On this video, through Paul Schappaugh, the Atlanta LGBT community asks question of Brian Brown, the ED for NOM. Judge for yourself on accuracy, or lack thereof, of his answers. With the divorce rate at 50%, maybe he should be helping straight people fix their own marriages instead trying to tell same-sex couples they can’t get married.

We found out later that he said that Dr. Alveda King was “attacked and smeared.” This is an out-and-out lie. Apparently, the importance of telling the truth is not part of his Bible.

Number 4 is “The Atlanta Speech of Tanya Ditty, the Georgia Director for the Concern Women for America.” Listen to the speech by Tanya Ditty, the Georgia Director for the Concern Women for America, given at the Atlanta NOM rally, August 7, 2010. She is big on quoting stats about children needing to grow up with a mother and father, but failed to tell people that these statistics came from studies having to do with single parents and nothing to do with same-sex couples.

Here’s another person who misuses facts, makes up facts out of thin air and refuses to see the true facts that are out there.

And, Number 5 is “An Interview with Tanya Ditty, the Georgia Director for the Concern Women for America.” This is interesting in how she dodges questions on various subjects, to hide the fact she really doesn’t know anything. She keeps harping on “traditional marriages.”

I wonder how far back she wants to go with this “traditional marriage” thing? In the time of Christ, women were property, for the express purpose of producing male heirs for men. Only male children from a woman he has a marriage contract with can legally be his heirs. That lasted until the late 19th Century.

So, does she want to go back to where women are nothing more the property of men? I think it’s time for the Concern Women for America to be concern about more important things.

The VA has a new directive on the treatment of Transgender Veterans, BUT they won’t release it. This is becoming a theme with the Obama Administration. Tell LGBT people that their issues are important then do nothing to make them a reality. Transgender veterans have decided not to be quiet about this issue any longer.

First, a little history. In January of 2003, the Transgender American Veterans Association was formed with the primary mission to work with the Department of Veteran Affairs to have their medical facilities treat transgender people with dignity and respect.

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In 2008, TAVA created a survey where 827 transgender veterans gave us information on all kinds of issues, especially their treatment at the VA. One third of those who took the survey had used a VA medical facility at one time of another. More than twenty percent of them had been mistreated by staff members, other patients, nurses and even doctors. The survey ended on May 1, 2008, and the raw data became public record. The Palm Center put out the White Papers in August.

TAVA was told by a VA insider that the raw data from the survey had reached the Veterans Health Administration, the medical department of the VA, and in June of 2008, they began drafting a directive to rectify the problem. In March of 2009 (after the Obama Administration took over,) the VHA sent a draft of their proposed directive to a few VA medical facilities for review by their transgender veterans. They didn’t contact TAVA or NCTE on this. The draft had misinformation, inaccuracies, incorrect descriptions and disrespectful definitions. It looked bad.

TAVA spent the next month communicating with some of the new people in the VA, some of whom had previous experience with transgender people and their medical issues. They agreed that the problem of mistreatment of transgender veterans needed to be fixed. TAVA felt hopeful that these new people now leading the VA would help us.

In May of 2009, the VHA sent a draft of their proposed directive, called “Providing Healthcare for Transgender and Intersex Veterans,” to NCTE to have them be the point organization in assuring the directive’s language looked correct in every way. With the help of trans lawyers and TAVA, NCTE put together a wonderful directive that would greatly improve how transgender veterans will be treated. The VA received our corrected version in July of 2009.

What the directive does cover is all the things that are available to other veterans, such as psychotherapy for PTSD, mammograms, prostate exams, pap smears and other important medical services, which had been denied to many transgender veterans in the past. This directive does indeed ensure that transgender veterans will be treated with dignity and respect.

I will not show the entire directive, because it may not be the final version. It has three pages total, with one page of definitions, a half page of references and the rest covering what the VA can and cannot do for transgender veterans. The language we will show you is from the draft of the directive we sent to the VHA and may have some tweaking before they release it. Sounds like we stepped into the ENDA territory.

Here are some of the important parts as they appeared in the revised draft:

– This directive does not apply to patients who receive benefits under the Civilian Health and Medical Program of the Department of Veterans Affairs (CHAMPVA).
– A diagnosis of Gender Identity Disorder (GID) is not a pre-condition for receiving care consistent with the Veteran’s self-identified gender.
– All staff, including medical and administrative staff, are required to treat as confidential any information about a patient’s transgender status or any treatment related to a patient’s gender transition, unless the patient has given permission to share this information.
– Diversity awareness training, (which educates staff on providing unbiased, respectful care to ALL Veterans) is available to supervisors and employees.

The following has to be said in bold capital letters for the good of those who will try to spread lies about this new directive. “THE DIRECTIVE SAYS THAT THE VA WILL NOT, DOES NOT AND CANNOT COVER SEX REASSIGNMENT/GENDER RECONSTRUCTION SURGERY.” That particular restriction is written into the Public Law that the VA has to follow in order to provide health care for veterans. It cannot be overridden by a simple directive change. However, it might be affected by other recent federal rulings. We’ll have to see.

As I stated, the VHA received our changes in July. They told us we would see it come out in August . . . then October . . . then February . . . and here it is May, a year from when we started making the changes, and still no directive.

To those LGBT people fighting for the repeal of DADT and the passage of ENDA, does this sound familiar? The difference is that this is not something Congress has to vote on. It’s a directive that can be implemented in a heartbeat and not a law that takes time to pass the House and the Senate. What is with the Obama Administration’s VHA when they hold back a simple directive that will instantly help part of the veteran community? I’ll let the conspiracy theorists play with that one. All we ask is to stop sitting on this and put it out to the VA medical facilities. It that so hard?

Since July of last year, when the VA had this directive in their hands, several transgender veterans have contacted TAVA saying that they had been treated badly at the VA, so we know that it could have prevented this if it had been introduced. And, even if these issues happen after implementation of the directive, the veterans would finally have it in hand to give them more clout when talking to the VA Patient Advocate. What is holding up the process? Who in the Administration is preventing this from coming out?

TAVA hasn’t been sitting idle since July. We have faxed a letter to the current DVA Secretary, retired Gen. Eric K. Shinseki and his secretary assured us he read it. Nothing happened. In early March, I personally presented the problem to the top administrator for Rep Joe Sestak, a retired Admiral and a champion for veterans’ rights, and Rep Sestak read the information. Sestak then sent me a letter saying he was “investigating and will respond soon.” Since then, he entered the final stages of a Senate race to replace Senator Arlen Specter and won. We hope to hear from him soon.

Other people have spoken to Representatives and Senators on our behalf, including NCTE, but still nothing happens. We wait for people to do the right thing, while transgender veterans have their basic health care denied. This issue will probably not cause a blip on the LGBT radar, and no one will be handcuffing themselves to the front doors of the DVA building. The transgender veterans will have to go it alone on this, as they have all along. The directive will eventually come out. We just hope it’ll be sooner than later.

This is a documentary of those individuals who crossed gender lines to serve their country, from the Revolutionary War to the Spanish American War. The video has stories of interesting people, like Deborah Sampson, Albert Cashier and Cathy Williams. It didn’t turn out too bad for what I had to work with.

I wanted to do a tribute to all of those transgender and transgender -like people who served this country proudly. It was amazing what I found when researching the information for this video. I hope you like it.

Please call Speaker Nancy Pelosi at 202-225-4965. Ask that the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, HR 3017, move to a vote.

I am reposting my video I did in early December of 2009.

Seems that the subject of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell has gotten hotter than a dark-colored car in a Phoenix summer. Straight media, straight bloggers, gay media and gay bloggers have all chimed in with their opinions, comments and condemnations of this very discriminatory law. It all started when President Obama said he wanted to repeal DADT during his State of the Union Speech.

The Palm Center in Santa Barbara, CA sent out a list of “recommendations” on what they can do to help the Pentagon Working Group on gays in the military work this issue out smoothly. They are:

• Consulting existing literature as a roadmap;
• Assessing the Impact on Unit Cohesion Properly;
• Consulting troops for relevant information rather than to ask their permission for reform;
• Sending study teams to Britain, Israel, Australia, and Canada; Using an appropriate standard for assessing the likely impact of change;
• Consulting research on the timing of implementation;
• Noting that leadership and consistency are more important than second-order effects; and
• Correcting for biases introduced by “don’t ask, don’t tell.”

This looks to be a very good plan of action, but notice something is missing.

Through all of this, a part of the LGB**T** community gets intentionally left out. Once again, the Trans American Veterans Association will raise their voices to not only say that trans people should be allowed to serve openly, but will insist upon it.

Of course, this has never been a popular stance with gay and lesbian people who want to claim that because DADT only covers “sexual orientation” and that trans people are not affected by the law. (Could someone please bring out that dead horse again?) Let me remind those whose reality is something akin to what Alice saw in Wonderland. We have records, as does SLDN, of straight and asexual trans people who have been harassed under DADT and kicked out. And, as was pointed out in previous articles, trans people can be gay, lesbian or bisexual. DADT AFFECTS TRANS PEOPLE, TOO.

As I have said countless times in the past, the military has no concept of the difference between sexual orientation and gender identity. To them, a heterosexual crossdresser is gay. A person who wishes to live the rest of their lives different from their birth sex, no matter who they are attracted, is gay. They only care about exercising their right to the legalized bigotry that DADT gives them.

Now, I’m hearing other trans people spouting defeatist attitudes toward ever seeing trans people serving openly in the military. Guess what. Some already have. We have passed onto SLDN several people who were allowed to start their transition before getting out. They used this information to help other trans people who were being forced out under DADT. Some even legally changed their name before getting out, assuring their DD-214 would have their new name. Another individual was called back to active duty AFTER she completed her transition and reported to SAC Headquarters during the first Gulf War. They had no problem with her change.

We have also pointed out that trans and trans-like people have served in every war this country has fought, since the beginning. It has been estimated that there are between 200,000 and 300,000 living trans veterans in the US today.

Add to all of this, Canada, Great Britain, Israel and Thailand are known to allow all trans people to serve openly. Australia and Spain allow only their trans men to serve openly. As been pointed out in the past, Canada allowed trans people to serve BEFORE allowing gay, lesbian and bisexual people could serve. The wheel has long since been invented for this.

We are also hearing the “hermaphrodite scare” cycling through the hatemonger organizations. “We can’t have hermaphrodites serving in the military!” Ah . . . reality check time. They’re already there.

According to medical science and the figures collected by the Intersex Society of North America, one in 500 people on planet Earth have some form of intersex condition. With 1.47 million active duty troops and another 1.46 million in the reserves, there are nearly six-thousand people in uniform who are intersexed. Seems the Pentagon is not too worried about this, so why should the rest of us be?

If the military wanted to weed out all intersex individuals, they would have to perform expensive special tests and medical exams by experts in the field. One of the tests would be to check the sex chromosomes on all three million service members. In the civilian world, that can cost somewhere around $800 dollars each. That would come to a total addition to the Defense Budget of another $2.344 billion dollars. Of course, in a military world famous for $1500 toilet seats and $700 hammers, you think they will pay only $800 for each test? Seems to be a hefty amount of tax dollars to spend on placating the hate mongers’ “concerns.”

And, we also heard the “bigotry-for-profit” groups hollering, “If we let gays serve in the military, we’ll have soldiers wearing dresses!” This is obviously coming from people who have never served in the military and have no concept of military rules and regulations. You see, the military has these clothing things called “uniforms.” It’s been sort-of a tradition with militaries since . . . oh say . . . before the ancient Egyptians.

Militaries today get real testy if a person is even slightly “out of uniform.” They are not noted for having a sense of humor when it comes to this. The military goes so far as to regulate size and type of earrings women can wear. Men cannot wear any earrings. So, the people who think male soldiers will get to wear dresses on a whim are doing nothing but instilling fear in the uneducated masses so they can convince them to send money to fight this scourge. The “bigotry-for-profit” groups are sending their children to college off the hard-earned money of ordinary Americans. It’s a scam worthy of the snake-oil salesmen in the old West.

Interesting enough, since DADT doesn’t have “gender identity of expression” in the language, it means that it doesn’t prevent trans people from serving in the military. For the most part, there are just policies and rules keeping trans people out of the military. President Obama may not be able to overturn DADT with an Executive Order, but he may be able to use one to allow trans people a chance to serve openly.

However, I doubt that any of the mostly-gay organizations would lift a finger to lobby the White House for that if it was proven possible. The incremental mindset many of the people running those organizations would not allow trans people to get something before gays and lesbians do. At least not in the good ‘ol U-S of A.

But, as we can all guess, President Obama will not be willing to spend one thin dime of his political capital to issue such an Executive Order. It becomes a moot point.

Here’s what trans people will face if they serve in the military or try to join after DADT is repealed. There is a policy in place preventing trans people from enlisting, and all the reasons the military used to kick them out before DADT will come back into play. Some uneducated commanders will think that because DADT has been repealed, their trans troops will be allowed to serve. I’m sure there will be people there to set them straight.

I feel that the repeal of DADT will put the wheels in motion to a day when trans people will be allowed to serve openly. This will not be an easy process, but if people are willing to stop throwing their hands in the air and giving up, then these rules can be changed. The trans community needs to work together with allies and ignore the perennial naysayers and those with a defeatist attitude that populate our community.

The repeal of DADT will not send intersex people to their recruiters in droves to sign up. And, if they did, so what? They have already served in honor. The repeal will not force male soldiers to wear dresses, regardless of what the hate mongers say. The repeal will take a tiny bit of pressure off of the trans troops, but they will still have to hide.

Even if trans people got the chance to serve openly, most would never tell anyone about being trans. The stigma that society has put on trans people would not be erased in an accepting US military, anymore then it does with trans people working in an accepting company. There will be a lot of work ahead of us if trans people want to serve openly in the military. We will never know if we can fix it if we don’t try.

The following is a plea to Congress and the President to pass the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) HR-3017, which is currently stuck in the House Committee for Education and Labor, Chaired by Rep. George Miller.

LGBT Americans want to help get this country back on its feet, but can’t as long as most of the country can still legally discriminate against them.  We need ENDA and we need it passed NOW! There is no excuse to discriminate in the work place any longer.  None.

The eleven videos are of the 16 speakers who spoke at the Atlanta 2009 Transgender Day of Remembrance.  We had State Senator Vincent Fort as the Keynote speaker.  Atlanta Mayoral Candidate Kasim Reed spoke, as did Atlanta City Council Candidate Amir Farokhi.  There were some beautiful words spoken and some angry words spoken, but it was a beautiful event.
The videos are not in any particular order.  Please do not try to comment here on the blog because I am preventing the heavy amount of spam that I get.  Please either send me a comment on my E-mail address at: monicahelms@earthlink.net, or on the specific video on YouTube.

Pastor Paul Turner:

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State Senator Vince Fort:

Atlanta Mayoral Candidate Kasim Reed:

Allyson Robinson from DC, Pastor Elliot Summerville at 5:00 minutes:

Jamie Roberts:

Dr. Gwynedd Thomas and Cheryl Courtney-Evans at 3:00 minutes:

Anneliese Singh and Maru Gonzalez together and Juliana Illari at 5:30 minutes:

Monica Helms:

Sir Jesse McNulty and Amir Farokhi at 3:00 minutes:

Betty Couvertier:

Alicia Newson:

This is a short video put to music of photos takes at the Atlanta TDOR event, November 20, 2009. Also included are photos of those we lost, at least the ones we had photos of.

Kevin MacLeod’s “With the Sea” provided the perfect background music to this video.

(In order to prevent the constant spam that happens on my blog, please place your comments in the YouTube site.)

The following seven video are of the individual speakers at the rally in front of the Georgia State Capital building on November 14, 2009.  On the anniversary of Prop 8 and the loss in Maine, the Atlanta LGBT community rallied to vent their feelings and their anger.  One of the speakers was Mary Norwood, who is a candidate in the runoff election for the Mayor of Atlanta.  They are posted in order of appearance.

Edmund Thornton, the Chairperson of the Stonewall Young Democrats of Georgia:

Jeff Graham, Executive Director of Georgia Equality:

Mary Norwood:

Laura Gentle, Community Activist:

Wendy Spencer: Former radio host in Boston:

Monica Helms:

Alex Oxford, Community Activist:

American Veterans For Equal Rights president Danny Ingram and Transgender American Veterans Association president Monica Helms have made a joint YouTube video appeal to President Obama and Congress to Lift the Ban on LGBT military service by repealing Dont Ask Dont Tell.

On this Veterans Day, as President Obama considers sending more patriotic American troops to Afghanistan, AVER and TAVA remind the President of his campaign promise to repeal DADT.

Send the link to others and your Congressional reps.  Here is the video: