Principles

Our December speaker was Curran Streett, Program Director for the Pride Center of the Capital Region. Founded in 1970, it was originally called the Capital District Gay Community Center. With three paid staff and relying mainly on volunteers, the Center offers meeting and activity space to the LGBT community (estimated to be between 4 and 10% of the total population) in a 9-county region.

“LGBT” stands for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender. The last term refers to any kind of gender nonconformance, including but not limited to changes of gender. (A further term is “transsexual,” which encompasses “cross-dressers,” e.g., men who like to dress up in women’s clothes [and which, I note, would also aptly describe anyone clothed as the late JC in his final earthly performance – FSR].)

As to sex changes, Ms. Curran noted that for children where a gender issue becomes evident, there is now available medical intervention to forestall puberty. This facilitates subsequent gender-change adaptations, including possible surgery, by avoiding puberty-induced bodily changes that are irreversible.

As we learned in a previous program, while most people are born as either male or female, there is an in-between zone where the lines can be blurred. Ms. Curran noted that society and cultural norms do not really allow for this gray area. One problem arises in public places, where he decision of whether to use the men’s or women’s restroom can actually be a serious problem, because going into the “wrong” one can get you in big trouble. And, if you wind up getting sent to prison, current policies assign even fully transgendered females to men’s prisons if their official records (e.g., birth certificate or driver’s license) identify them as male. And vice versa.

Even our language itself divides people into “hes” and “shes” with no messing with Mister In-between (or Miss In-between). A new pronoun, “ze,” has been created to apply in such cases, but it does not slip easily off the tongue, and is certainly not in widespread use.

Up through the ‘60s, the whole gay community was basically beyond the pale and forced to exist underground. (A personal note: I grew up in the ‘60s, and homosexuality was so hidden that not until well into adulthood did I even become cognizant of what it was.) There were a few bars in New York City where gays could congregate, but always under threat of violent police harassment – it was actually illegal just to be gay. In the 1969 “Stonewall” episode, they fought back for the first time, marking the onset of the gay-rights movement.

Ms. Streett’s talk made evident the really remarkable degree of progress and social liberalization experienced since then on such issues. This is seen in the fact that, on average, gays are “coming out” younger and younger. In the 1970s the average age was 48; this fell to 28 in the ’80s, and all the way to 13 nowadays. (Though “coming out” is often more a process than a single act: coming out to one’s gay friends is different from coming out to one’s parents, or to a wider circle of friends, or at one’s place of employment, which carries a range of possible risks.)

As noted, this was not the first program we’ve had on this general topic. But humanism emphasizes the human. We humanists too were, once, beyond the pale and confined to closets. We seek freedom to flourish not only for ourselves, but for all people. And we’re winning.

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"LGBT issues- The Pride Center"

Curran Streett