Join The Impact Massachusetts

By Don Gorton, Clerk of Join the Impact MA

A recent Massachusetts State Police sting operation in a park popular with gay men has raised concerns of entrapment and profiling. Plainclothes officers—all but one male—arrested 31 men, most for trespassing in MacDonald Park in Medford, MA this summer, allegedly in the course of investigating the rape of a woman which remains unsolved. Arrestees describe being eyeballed by casually-dressed young men who sustained eye contact to the point it appeared they were “cruising” and proposing a private assignation in a secluded area. Stepping off the trail, men who thought they were being propositioned were arrested for trespass on public property.

Join the Impact MA, along with the Anti-Violence Project, GLAD, and Fenway Health’s Violence Recovery Program, recently met with public safety officials to protest State Police tactics which lead to the entrapment of gay men. The meeting was reported in the Boston Globe http://bostonglobe.com/metro/2011/11/11/arrests-raise-concern-gay-profiling/tYA6Wym4tBk4X9jhlybsMN/story.html . The State Police denied that the undercover officers were leading the arrestees on with eye contact, arguing that plainclothes officers were there in response to a reported rape. Public safety officials admit, however, that anti-terrorist protocols entail visual surveillance of suspicious individuals by police officers on state-owned land. Sustained eye contact is interpreted by many gay men as a sexual overture, and those who are subjected to undercover State Police surveillance have no way of knowing that the other man is assessing the threat of terrorism.

Historically plainclothes police officers called “decoys” have been used to make arrests of gay men seeking private sexual encounters, because the consensual nature of same-sex activity makes it otherwise difficult to detect. In 1989, State Police commanders agreed not to send plainclothes decoys into areas where gay men fraternize except as a last resort to deter unlawful acts of exposure. Public safety officials dispute that the recent trespassing arrests were made by “decoy” patrols, alleging that the plainclothes officers were not targeting the gay men who were arrested. However, they have proposed no specific measures to prevent the danger of entrapment.

In my role as Chairperson of the Greater Boston Lesbian/Gay Political Alliance, I first became involved in negotiations with the Massachusetts State Police to stop the entrapment and profiling of gay men in 1989. It is troubling to witness the return of undercover male officers to areas popular with gay men, whether to investigate threats of terrorism, rape, or citizen complaints of LGBT visibility. Regardless, the door is open to more entrapment arrests. I wonder how a gay man taking a walk through the park is supposed to know that the heavy eye contact from an attractive young man is intended to stop terrorism, and not a proposition for a private intimate encounter? Whether they’re targeting gay men or not, lots of guys without criminal intent are going to be caught up in the dragnet.

I am troubled by the trend toward more aggressive policing of “trespassing” on public property, whether aimed at gay men socializing in parks or Occupy protestors in various cities. Alleged trespassing violations do not implicate public safety and should not be a focus for heavy police enforcement operations of the sort we’ve seen recently. With budget cuts eviscerating many critical social services programs, we cannot waste money to pay police officers to keep the public off of public property.

Join the Impact MA is considering next steps to prevent entrapment and profiling of LGBT people by police officers, and invites volunteers to join in the effort.

90 protestors were on hand in rural Auburn, NH early Saturday morning, September 17, to greet attendees arriving for the Exodus International North Atlantic Regional Conference. Exodus is the country’s leading network of “ex-gay ministries” and a pillar of the anti-LGBT religious right.

Standing on a traffic island where cars exited the highway and lining the road leading to the conference site, LGBT activists and straight allies held signs, shouted chants, and sang freedom songs. Messages like “Be Yourself,” “Conversion Therapy Kills,” and “God Loves Me and She Knows I’m Gay” adorned colorfully decorated posters. Ian Struthers, Co-Chair of Join the Impact MA, struck up chants as cars passed, such as “Exodus, Exodus, Quack, Quack, Quack/You Can’t Change Gays and That’s a Fact.”

Demonstrators came from Massachusetts, Maine, Vermont, and New Hampshire. The largest contingent came from South Church Unitarian Universalist in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, led by co-ministers the Rev. Chris Jablonski and the Rev. Lauren Smith. Join the Impact MA (“JTIMA”), which was lead organizer, brought several carloads up from Boston. Other groups represented included Truth Wins Out, the Harvard Queer Students and Allies, Get Equal, and the Anti-Violence Project of Massachusetts.

People arriving at the conference seemed initially confused by the spirited LGBT-positive presence. Some returned the friendly waves from the crowd while others scowled. One member of the First Assembly of God, which hosted the conference, told organizers that the Church owned the road and all the land surrounding it, but Auburn police confirmed that the area surrounding the site was public property.

As the Exodus conference got underway after 9 AM, demonstrators proceeded along the sides of the road to a grassy space abutting the Church grounds. The Rev. Mr. Jablonski led the group in a non-denominational prayer, then a series of speakers criticized the practice of “reparative therapy” which attempts to change sexual orientation. Wayne Besen, Executive Director of Truth Wins Out spoke first, and noted how attendance at “ex-gay” gatherings like the one held a week earlier in Houston, TX was dwindling. According to Besen, realizing that they are losing the “culture wars” in the United States, the “ex-gay” movement increasingly focuses on exporting homophobia to African countries like Uganda.

One of the founders of Join the Impact MA, Harvard senior Ryan Hanley discussed the origins of the “ex-gay” movement in now-discredited psychiatric notions. JTIMA Co-Chair Ian Struthers spoke of the horrific experience of member Sam Brinton, who was subjected to brutal conversion “treatments” as an adolescent. Ian emphasized JTIMA’s aspiration that LGBT youth might grow and flourish as who they are without the homophobic messages Exodus uses to browbeat them into changing.

JTIMA Board member Matthew Murphy movingly told of his experiences growing up in Southwestern Virginia, where he was led to believe that homosexuality was the worst thing in the world. Heterosexually married for 12 years, Matthew came out at age 44 and is now happily coupled. Other speakers included JITMA Board member and state lead for Get Equal Massachusetts Tymothie-James Bergendahl, Cathy Kristofferson, also of JTIMA and Get Equal, the Anti-Violence Project’s David Rudewick and John Hosty-Grinnell, and Sarina Patterson of the Harvard Queer Students and Allies. The author, Don Gorton of Join the Impact MA and the Anti-Violence Project, emceed the speak-out.

Several conference attendees lingered outside, eyed the LGBT-affirming crowd warily, and even approached the group, but there were no incidents. The crowd outside protesting was larger than the group inside listening to Exodus’s message, according to a JTIMA member who discreetly attended the conference.

After the event, protestors socialized at a reception at a nearby restaurant. Organizers were exhilarated with the successful challenge to Exodus in the remote New England location they chose for their conference.

Exodus International, the leading proponent of “reparative therapy” which purports to change sexual orientation, will hold its North Atlantic Regional Conference on September 16-18, 2011. Entitled “Coming Home,” the conference will happen at 45 Myles Drive in Auburn, New Hampshire and is targeted at “pastors, parents, married couples, singles, students, ministry leaders and counselors.” Join the Impact MA, Truth Wins Out, the Anti-Violence Project of Massachusetts, and other organizations are organizing a visible presence near the conference site to counteract the ex-gay movement’s advocacy of quack conversion treatments to further its extreme right-wing, anti-equality political agenda.

The compelling story of Join the Impact MA member Sam Brinton in Bay Windows stripped away the veneer of “Christian love” the ex-gay movement uses to dissemble the practice of “reparative therapy.” We plan to disseminate accurate information about sexual orientation, society, and public health and safety. We are emphasizing the strong positions in opposition to “reparative therapy” taken by the American Medical Association, the American Psychiatric Association, the American Psychological Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy, the American Counseling Association, the National Association of Social Workers, the National Association of School Psychologists, and the American Academy of Physicians’ Assistants.

Moreover, we will expose the violence that homophobia causes when it is internalized by lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender youth. The American Psychiatric Association has linked “reparative therapy” to LGBT youth suicide: “The potential risks of ‘reparative therapy’ are great, including depression, anxiety and self-destructive behavior, since therapist alignment with societal prejudices against homosexuality may reinforce self-hatred already experienced by the patient.”

Yet our aim is not to be confrontational, but to let LGBT youth like Sam know that they are not alone. Instead of the message of LGBT self-loathing ex-gay activists promote, we will offer the alternative of self-acceptance, community solidarity, and love. Our presence at the conference will include, but not be limited to, LGBT Christians and other people of faith who will testify that God loves them just as they are, unconditionally.

Please contact us at info@jointheimpactma.com if you are interested in participating in our affirmational presence. We will be gathering at 8:00 am on September 17 near the conference site in Auburn, NH. Here’s the Facebook event for more information.

[And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free. John 8:32]

Join the Impact MA is actively lobbying for the Transgender Equal Rights Bill, which is currently before the Joint Committee on the Judiciary of the Massachusetts Legislature. The bill is vitally needed to protect the public from discrimination and hate crimes based on gender-identity and gender-expression-bias. Massachusetts residents should contact their Senators and Representatives and demand that the Judiciary Committee bring the trans rights bill up for a vote. The bill has been bottled up for over 5 years! Go to this webpage if you don’t know who your State Senator and Representative are.

Hate crimes against transgender victims go underreported, in large part because the transgender community does not enjoy the same legal protections as other minorities in Massachusetts. The problem is severe: The Anti-Violence Project of Massachusetts conducted a survey of transgender victims of hate-motivated violence, and reviewed the academic literature on the subject. Based on Massachusetts law, the research is intended to assist law enforcement professionals in improving cooperation with victims of hate crimes based on gender identity and gender expression bias. The results of this study are published in the report Anti-Transgender Hate Crimes: The Challenge for Law Enforcement available here. The primary author is Don Gorton, Esq., the Chairperson of the Anti-Violence Project, Clerk of Join the Impact MA, and former Co-Chair of the Massachusetts Governor’s Task Force on Hate Crimes.

2nd Annual Equal Rights Conference
Boston, Massachusetts
April 29th – May 1st
www.lgbtqmomentum.org

In 2010 over 40 different organizations and more than 400 people attended the first ever Northeast Regional LGBTQ equal rights conference. Since then at the federal level some of the gains of our movement include: the congressional repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell; the public declaration by the courts and Obama that the Defense of Marriage Act is unconstitutional, and the granting of non-discrimination protections for HUD funded housing. On a local level, we have taken huge steps forward by winning protections for transgender state employees and anti-bullying legislation, while working to maintain and extend marriage equality in the region. All of these gains are just a step in the right direction, but the fight for full equality and unconditional justice continues and many people in our movement are working on projects that cannnot be measured by legal and legislative measures. This conference will bring together LGBTQ people & allies from all around the Northeast to collaborate and strategize about how to continue our momentum.

SIGN-UP FOR CONFERENCE UPDATES:

Go to our website: www.lgbtqmomentum.org

To sign up for our email listserv: http://groups.google.com/group/lgbtconference

Follow us on Twitter @lgbtqmomentum or tweet about the conference using #lgbtqmomentum

Let us know you are attending and share this event on facebook: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=210263775652238

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
16 March 2011
Contact: Ann Coleman
Phone: 617.640.9112
Email: ann.j.coleman@gmail.com

On Sunday, March 20, 2011, at 2 p.m., members of Join the Impact Massachusetts (JTIMA), an advocacy group for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) people, will be joining the Veterans for Peace (VFP) in an alternative St. Patrick’s Day Parade in South Boston. VFP is the first organization ever to secure a permit for an alternative parade on the same date as the annual traditional parade organized by the Allied War Veterans Council. This is only the second year in Boston history that LGBT people have marched openly as a contingent, whether in an official or unofficial capacity.

Most people in Boston still remember the court battles and antagonisms that resulted in a unanimous 1995 U.S. Supreme Court ruling. This ruling allowed the Allied War Veterans Council to set the terms of participation which included barring openly LGBT or controversial contingents whose messages appeared discordant with the overall message of the parade. In the 16 years since that decision was handed down, no groups have challenged that ruling.

This year, the Veterans for Peace applied to march in the traditional parade and were denied because their flags and banners with the message of “Veterans for Peace” were considered overtly political in nature by parade organizers. As a result, VFP obtained proper permission from the city of Boston for an alternative parade for those who still wished to march on the day of the parade but were previously denied as well. And while the Veterans’ message is about peace and an end to all wars, JTIMA brings the hope of equality to a more general wish for peace in our time.

“Public sentiment in 2011 is on the side of both equality and peace,” said Ann Coleman, a co-chair and lead organizer with JTIMA. “More than 80 percent of those recently polled by Gallup are opposed to workplace and housing discrimination of LGBT people. More than 52 percent polled in a Rasmussen report released last week want to see all US troops come home from the Middle East and Central Asia within the next year. The Allied War Veterans Council needs to realize that Peace and LGBT Equality are welcoming messages for our time.”

Coleman, an Irish-American herself, continued: “The first St. Patrick’s Day parades in Boston and the United States were organized to combat negative stereotypes and discrimination faced by Irish immigrants. They often came to this country as indentured servants only to be discriminated against by the broader public in situations of housing and employment and severely mistreated and mischaracterized. We hope to connect our parade to that long forgotten history that it is important to stand up to discrimination and bigotry.”

As an organization, JTIMA has no specific stance on any ongoing wars in which the United States has been involved, but they do believe in a more peaceful world where LGBT people can escape the violent homophobia and transphobia that affect millions upon millions of people worldwide every year.

JTIMA and other members of the LGBT community will be marching in the alternative parade behind the banner, ”Full Equality For All.” They are meeting other participating groups at 2 p.m. at the corner of Foundry and Greenbaum Streets in South Boston, near the Broadway station on the MBTA Red Line. For more information, contact Ann Coleman at 617.640.9112, or via email at ann.j.coleman@gmail.com.

Also, please visit our Facebook event page at http://on.fb.me/LGBTStPats

Join the Impact Massachusetts is a 501(c)(4) non-profit organization committed to full equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer-identified people. We mobilize individuals and work with existing LGBTQ groups to maximize our collective impact both locally and nationwide while respecting diversity of opinion and belief.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 23, 2011          
Contact: Chris Mason, Co-Chair
Phone: 978-729-5926
Email: Chris@JoinTheImpactMA.com
        
JOIN THE IMPACT MA CALLS FOR INVESTIGATION OF ANTI-GAY ORGANIZATION’S UNFAIR AND DECEPTIVE FUNDRAISING

“MASSACHUSETTS FAMILY INSTITUTE” ENGAGING IN ILLEGAL FUNDRAISING

On February 23, 2011– Join the Impact Massachusetts (JTIMA), a grassroots organization working toward full equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people called on Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley to investigate the deceptive fundraising practices of the Massachusetts Family Institute (MFI). JTIMA is asking for an order that the MFI stop all unfair and deceptive fundraising practices- including assertions that contributions to support lobbying are eligible for federal tax deductions. The MFI’s work seeks to undermine the rights of LGBT people.

According to JTIMA’s research, the MFI is in violation of federal and Massachusetts state law governing the solicitations of contributions for a charitable organization.

The MFI holds itself out as a lobbying organization on its website: www.mafamily.org. Case in point: the lead content on its home page advocates defeat of the Transgender Equal Rights Bill. Site visitors are invited to email their state legislators. An agenda for the 2011 Massachusetts legislative session and a statement of opposition to congressional repeal of the “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” policy are featured links at the top of their web page. Consistent with this posture of legislative advocacy, potential donors are told on their web page titled “Donate” that “[t]he funds we raise right now are critical as we work towards the 2011 Legislative Session.” at: https://www.icontribute.us/mfi/initiative/matching-funds.

Although the MFI is soliciting funds for lobbying purposes, the following statement appears on their “Contribution” web page: “Contributions to Massachusetts Family Institute are deductible as charitable donations for federal income tax purposes”. Under federal law, no more than an insubstantial part of contributions benefiting from a tax subsidy may be used for “activities … [of] carrying on propaganda, or otherwise attempting, to influence legislation”. 26 U.S.C. § 501(c) (3). Donors are being asked to support legislative advocacy on the representation that the amount of their donations will be deductible from their taxable income for federal tax purposes. This promised inducement to donate gives the Massachusetts Family Institute a wrongful fundraising advantage over organizations with an opposing point of view, engaged in lobbying without preferential tax status.

“The Massachusetts Family Institute is working to deny LGBT people equal protections under the law at the same time they are breaking the law,” said Chris Mason, Co-Chair of Join the Impact MA. “All we ask is that the MFI play by the rules; nothing more, nothing less.”

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Friday April 29 – May 1, 2011

Old South Church (LGBTQ-affirming church)
Copley Square, Boston, MA

See Facebook event page here: http://on.fb.me/LGBT-Conf

Staceyann Chin, an LGBTQ Activist, Author, and Poet, speaking during last year's conference. More than 400 people from all corners of the country attended this conference in Somerville, MA from March 26 to March 28, 2010 (photo by Teddy Estok)

The purpose of the conference is to bring together grassroots activists from all around the Northeast and beyond to collaborate, discuss, educate, debate, and strategize about the struggle for full equality for everyone within the LGBTQ spectrum!

Recently, activists have made a tremendous impact on the national debate for LGBTQ rights by insisting their voices be heard. However, the fight for full equality is far from over.

We need an opportunity to get together to discuss the history of how civil rights have been won in the past; issues facing the LGBTQ community today; current legislation and strategy; and other tactics for how we can win!

Please join us and help us create an experience that will shape the future of the LGBTQ Civil Rights Movement!

For more information, please email us at:
2011.lgbtq.rights.conference@gmail.com

Members of Join the Impact Massachusetts are taking the time to meet with other leaders in our community to be certain that we are truly bringing the LGBTQ people of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts closer to full equality.

That said, our January 5 action has been delayed so we can properly coincide with the actions of other organizations on January 27 at the Massachusetts State House. We will certainly keep you posted on developments as they become available.

Thank you for your patience and understanding.

David (david@jointheimpactma.com)

In 37 states nationwide, there are no protections for people based on actual or perceived gender identity. Nothing in laws about public accommodations, housing, employment. In 40 states, there is nothing on the books regarding hate crimes for transgender or gender-queer individuals. And, in my time as an activist, I have helped a trans friend move because she would have ended up homeless and there were no programs to help her, and heard stories of gender-queer individuals being handled roughly by authorities. I’m sure there are countless others with even more stories like these.

Oh, there are stories beyond stories: homeless shelters refusing to keep trans women safe, despite ordinances that require city-funded institutions to recognize their true gender identity; trans women and men who struggle with workplace discrimination; and bias-motivated attacks on “trannies” (what their attackers hurled as spit-loaded epithets) that would make your blood run cold. And this is just in Massachusetts.

I have friends elsewhere who think Massachusetts is this perfect haven for all LGBTQ people. But, in the even big liberal city of Boston, our community is far from safe. This includes the transgender and gender-queer brothers and sisters who make up a significant portion of our community. And they must be protected.

During the last session of our state’s legislature, “An Act Relative to Gender-Based Discrimination and Hate Crimes” (H.1728/S.1687) was introduced by House Representative Carl Sciortino (D-Medford/Somerville) and Senator Ben Downing (D-Pittsfield). It was an all-encompassing bill that would protect transgender and gender-queer individuals in a number of matters included under civil law. Housing, credit, public accommodations, employment, and bias-motivated (“hate”) crimes – it was a bill that probably would have made those who composed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 pretty damn proud, with its thorough approach to full protections.

A hearing at the State House in July of 2009 brought hundreds upon hundreds of people in and out of the chambers where the Joint Committee on the Judiciary met. Its lead sponsors spoke to the need for the bill, and dozens upon dozens of men and women followed, allies to our transgender and gender-queer brethren, friends of the LGBT community, all stepped up to the microphone to plead for the bill’s swift passage. Those who opposed the bill were scattered in between supporters, and their words, spewed like venom, stunned many who were present into painful silence.

The bill ended up with 106 co-sponsors, including a slight majority in each house of the legislature, and should very easily have passed through without issue, then right up to the Governor’s desk where he fully intended to sign it into law. Grassroots and professional activists throughout the state sat on the edges of their seats, waiting for the day we would find it passed out of committee and onto the floor.

But that day never came. Fear, disinterest – the reasons escape us all.

An entire year passed and not another word was said about the Trans Civil Rights bill (its nickname to many who worked for its passage). The bill languished in committee, with blame assigned to specific committee members and others who were “holding up the works” and preventing what should have been a swift passage. And some time during the middle of the summer of 2010, the bill quietly died, with little media attention about its demise and little knowledge as to the reason the bill never made it to the House floor.

From the Harvey Milk Day Rally for Transgender Civil Rights, 22 May 2010. Photo by Ta-Chung Ong

Join the Impact Massachusetts is a grassroots organization still in its formative years, but we know how to get the job done. We are a group of people who firmly believe that the “T” and “Q” will always be part of the LGBTQ equation, despite other organizations bypassing the needs of trans and gender-queer men and women for an easier ride to success with and recognition for their actions.

We will fight this year – in every way we know how – to be certain that the bill is passed, and that our Governor signs it into law.

This starts now.

On Wednesday, January 5, 2011 – on the very first day of the new session, in the minutes before and after our new legislators are sworn into office – members of Join the Impact Massachusetts will go to the State House to welcome legislators, both new and old, as well as their family and friends, and the media, so that we can strongly encourage the swift filing, passage, and signing into law of this year’s version of “An Act Relative to Gender-Based Discrimination and Hate Crimes.” Our small and colorful signs will indicate the presence of transgender and queer-identified men and women throughout society. Our informational sheets will indicate what this bill can do for our transgender and queer-identified brothers and sisters once it is signed into law. We will be peaceful, but firm. We will be a presence that must be acknowledged. We will conduct a demonstration for transgender civil rights awareness.

Please join us this Wednesday, from roughly 10 a.m. to 12 noon. We will meet outside earlier, dressed in our best business casual or Sunday suits and dresses, then enter the State House to start this new journey for full LGBTQ equality in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. That morning, we will be lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer-identifying people. And we will be heard.

David Mailloux
Organizer, Co-Chair
Join the Impact Massachusetts