UPDATE 2: The firining “is in direct violation of the city government’s own internal non-discrimination policy,” according to HRC. Curtsy: Pam at Pandagon.
UPDATE: There’s a petition you can sign to object to the firing.
Led by born-again Republican Mary Black, the City Commissioners of Largo, Florida voted to fire City Manager Steve Stanton. Stanton had been City Commissioner for 15 years, but once his intention to get a sex-change operation become know the good Republicans and Christians of Largo couldn’t bear to let him be employed a moment longer.
According to local activist Peggy Schaefer of the First Baptist Church of Indian Rocks:
I don’t want that man in office. I don’t think we should be paying him $150,000 a year when he’s not been truthful. We have to speak up. Of course, we don’t believe in sex changes or lesbianism. They have their rights, but we do, too.
And according to Ron Sanders, pastor of Lighthouse Baptist Church of Largo:
If Jesus was here tonight, I can guarantee you he’d want [Stanton] terminated. Make no mistake about it.
From TampaBay.com:
LARGO — City commissioners ended one of the most tumultuous weeks in Largo history Tuesday night by moving to fire City Manager Steve Stanton following his disclosure that he will have a sex-change operation. […] Commissioners voted 5-2, with Mayor Pat Gerard and Commissioner Rodney Woods in dissent. […]
“I’m going to be embarrassed if we throw this man out on the trash heap after he’s worked so hard for the city,” Gerard said before the vote. “We have a choice to make: We can go back to intolerance, or we can be the city of progress.”
Until last week, [Stanton] had served 14 years as the city manager, generally to good reviews. Last fall, commissioners raised his salary nearly 9 percent to $140,234 a year.
But on Feb. 21, the St. Petersburg Times reported that Stanton was undergoing hormone therapy in preparation for gender-reassignment surgery — a plan known only to a small circle of people, including his wife, medical team and a few top officials at City Hall.
Stanton and his friends had written an eight-page plan to help make his decision known in June, when he said his 13-year-old son could be out of town and shielded from the publicity.
Instead, the news came out before he told his son. Outraged residents swarmed commissioners, demanding he be ousted.
“It’s just real painful to know that seven days ago I was a good guy and now I have no integrity, I have no trust and most painful, I have no followers,” Stanton said.
There’s not much to say other than: Disgusting.
* * *
So who is this Mary Black, the commissioner who led the movement to fire Stanton because she hates transsexuals? She is (of course) a born-again Christian Republican with a chip on her shoulder about queers. Here’s what she said about firing Stanton: “I do not feel he has the integrity, nor the trust, nor the respect, nor the confidence to continue as the city manager of the city of Largo.”
A few facts about Mary Black you may not already know:
* Black is anti-abortion even in cases of rape and incest. She has said that abortion could be okay if the mother will die otherwise. (St. Petersburg Times, 10/2/1992).
* “Mary Black ran for city commissioner for one reason. She has been extremely clear about that before the election, during the election and now after the election. Her one and only goal is to stop the ‘gay agenda’ by forcing her biblical beliefs on all of us.” —St. Petersburg Times, letter to the editor, 6/14/2005
* Mary Black has a reputation for being an obstructionist and (frankly) a bit weird. From an editorial in the St. Petersburg Times (also picked up by the Largo Times and the North Pinellas Times) (6/10/2005):
She has refused to meet with the city manager or city attorney, implying there is something unsavory about doing so. She stays away from City Hall. She conducts her city business out of her home, on her own computer. She communicates with the city by e-mail memos. She seems open only to the counsel of unidentified supporters she says asked her to run and represent their concerns.
When she gets to City Commission meetings and discovers that other commissioners know things she doesn’t, she acts like there is some conspiracy to deny her information. When she asks the city manager to put an item on a meeting agenda for her and it isn’t constructed as she had intended, she blames him or the staff rather than her own refusal to communicate openly. She eschews the advice of the city attorney and writes her own legal opinions, though she is not a lawyer.
City Commission meetings have become torturous sessions where other commissioners and staff members try to figure out what Black wants […] If Black’s intent when she entered office was to keep city government so tangled up that it could not accomplish the people’s business, she is doing that very well.
But as bizarre and hateful a figure as Mary Black is, it’s not just about her. It’s about the mob of locals, like Peggy Schaefer, who hate anyone who isn’t just like themselves, and can’t even bear the idea of a transsexual having a job in government. It’s about the four other commissioners — Andy Guyette, Gigi Arntzen, Harriet K. Crozier, and Gay Gentry — who said “me too” to bigotry. And it’s about the voters who will probably reward the five hatemongers for their prejudice.
I hope that Steve Stanton (who plans to become Susan Stanton) lands on her feet. And I hope that Peggy Schaefer, Mary Black, Andy Guyette, Gigi Arntzen, Harriet K. Crozier, and Gay Gentry all learn to find the shame they are so desperately lacking.
Via Jay Sennet and AngryBrownButch. And as Autumn points out, this case illustrates why anti-discrimination legislation needs to include transgendered people.
Pingback: Black sex
Pingback: A Wizard Did It
Pingback: AngryBrownButch
Is there some place people can contribute money for Stanton’s legal expenses? Are any of the legal defense funds involved?
I agree. That is disgusting, and those commissioners should be ashamed of themselves. They didn’t even have the stones to say “we don’t want a transsexual working with us”, instead making up BS about how they can’t trust the manager because he “hid” his plans from them.
From the petition: By signing this petition, you are opting into further communications from the National Sexuality Resource Center
Classy: piggybacking their spam onto Stanton’s troubles. I signed anyway, but the NSRC will be getting a nastygram opt-out from me in reply to the first chunk of spam they send me.
That particular area of Florida seems highly susceptible to government manipulation by people of a radical religious bent. I wonder what that’s about?
This:
“If Jesus was here tonight, I can guarantee you he’d want [Stanton] terminated. Make no mistake about it.”
blows my mind. What incredible, fucking arrogance.
I can only imagine that Pastor Sanders was actually just referring to his friend Jesus Rodriguez. Because Jesus of Nazareth spent so much time hanging out with lepers and tax collectors and Samaritan women and other socially undesirable folks that I think we can pretty easily predict he’d be on Stanton’s side.
This is an outrage. I don’t pretend to understand what would move Steve Stanton to do what he’s doing, but it’s none of my business. Hounding him out of his governmental job for it is not how I understand the people’s business is supposed to be conducted. Ms. Black has not stated that she is doing this in the Lord’s name. She said that she thinks it’s an issue of honesty, etc. But Steve never promised the city to live the rest of his life as a man, he promised to perform his duties according to the law. This is not how a Christian is supposed to behave as I understand it, and I’ve spent some effort to understand just that.
But on Feb. 21, the St. Petersburg Times reported that Stanton was undergoing hormone therapy in preparation for gender-reassignment surgery — a plan known only to a small circle of people, including his wife, medical team and a few top officials at City Hall.
I wonder who disclosed this information. If it was a health-care professional, they could be prosecuted under HIPAA and other laws. If it was an official at City Hall, it’s they whose integrity, trust, respect and confidence is lacking.
I simply don’t care what Jesus would say on a particular topic. In this particular case I would want to know the job performance and any problems that would result from the surgery. Anything else is irrelevant .
Personally, I think that if Jesus was in Florida he’d be surfing.
Or stoned.
I don’t think it’s fair to say “of course” the bad guy in this is a Republican. I find that anti-trans hatred is often bipartisan.
Stoned? I thought he was crucified.
(Ba-DU-duh.). Thank you, thank you! I’ll be here all week! Enjoy the crabs!
First point: Would it kill you folks for someone to say “hey, Amp, nicely done drawing?” or something? Sheesh.
Second, and more importantly:
Les, maybe I’m naive about this. But I do think that Democrats, even though they certainly are not free of anti-trans prejudice, are less likely to go to the extreme of leading a movement to have a transsexual fired for being transsexual.
I admit I could be mistaken about this; goodness knows there’s a lot I hate about the Democrats. But on the narrow question of “politicians should do their best to make sure transsexuals are fired,” I suspect there’s a real difference between the parties.
Yep, you’re right, they didn’t have the “stones”…perhaps because 4 of the 5 commissioners who voted to give him the axe are women! LOL
So much for women ennobling politics…sheesh.
Chris,
By ennobling I hope you didn’t mean bringing some sort of emotional morality to politics. Stick a gender on a pedestal and it will fall on it’s ass, as the beliefs of some innate moral behavioral quality in regards to gender seem to be constructed from wishes and dreams.
‘Course, ya could be joking, my sense of humor tends to fall flat online. If so, sorry.
And yes, Amp, the drawing was nice. Rather liked the color scheme. I was going to mention it earlier, but I wasn’t sure of the artist and I missed the signature, if there was one.
I agree. That is disgusting, and those commissioners should be ashamed of themselves. They didn’t even have the stones to say “we don’t want a transsexual working with us”, instead making up BS about how they can’t trust the manager because he “hid” his plans from them.
Dammit, I’m not in Florida, but if anyone’s in Florida and has the time, I would suggest looking into any findable medical records of any and all government officials.
If someone had a colonoscopy and didn’t report it to all the local newspapers, start calling them. Right?
To Chris…
Heh. The idea that women are pure and somehow not capable of hate is a patriarchal stereotype. It’s frequently clung to by various less savvy feminists, because it’s not a visibly negative stereotype (at least, unless you consider it in context as a part of the virgin/whore dichotomy) but we all know “positive” stereotypes suck just as much.
I think the city has a right to limit itself to non-transsexuals born non-transsexual if that’s what it chooses.
Ampersand writes:
I’d like to believe that, but having had a number of Democrats say they wish the DNC would drop support for gay rights because “it’s hurting the party”, I’m no longer convinced Democrats are any better than Republicans on the subject. I mean, we’ve had Democratic party majorities in various branches of the government and we still don’t have same-sex marriage, the right to serve openly in the military, or any number of other rights that Dems claim to be all about.
FCH,
Are you anti-non-discrimination for all groups, or just for transsexuals?
Also, given that the city government of Largo actually has a non-discrimination policy which includes gender identity, do you think that that choice should trump the decision of the current board in an individual case (that is, are non-discrimination policies protecting transsexuals void in your view, or are they legitimate where they exist, but just not inherent)?
Also, if the state had a non-discrimination policy that recognized gender identity as a protected category, would you still feel that the city had the right to opt out?
I really would like to know more about this “gay agenda” of which they speak. I mean I’m bi, surely I should have received the memo? I always thought our only agenda was to persuade people to improve their sartorial skills…oops, silly me.
Mary Black is a nightmare. The fact that people like that can actually get elected is a little scary, not to mention her apparent inability to grasp the nuts and bolts of how loacl politics works.
Funny the power that hatred has to melt a person’s brain.
Furry Cat Herder said…”I think the city has a right to limit itself to non-transsexuals born non-transsexual if that’s what it chooses. ”
Why? Most municipalities aren’t allowed to exclude people based on gender, race, sexual orientation, religion etc. Why should this be any different?
Charles,
I’d like to see people react with the kinds of “This is terrible!” hand wringing when transsexuals are excluded from places other than, say, the city managers office.
But, since several prominent posters here pick and choose where and why they wring their hands over transsexual discrimination, and refuse to see the connections between transsexual exclusion and anti-transsexual bigotry everywhere, I just like being a pain in the butt and make the same arguments they do elsewhere, here.
Okay, so you were being sarcastic?
That was some dry sarcasm. :)
Charles,
Hmmm. Ironic. I think I was being ironic.
There are people here, regular posters and contributors, who are very strongly opposed to equality for transsexuals. “Moral outrage” over the mistreatment of transsexuals is limited to “those transsexuals, way over there” who aren’t at risk for inconveniencing “us non-transsexual, right here.”
So long as what happens to transsexuals happens in a different time zone, or better yet, on a different continent, being offended by discriminatory conduct towards transsexuals is politically correct. Should it happen in the same timezone, state, county, city, or piece of land in central western Michigan, it’s suddenly okay and probably the right of the people doing it.
I don’t imagine you’re contextualizing this in the debate about whether or not it’s appropriate to call Ann Coulter a transsexual as a way to insult her (mostly cuz you were talking about people here, not elsewhere), but… ugh.
It’s amazing to think that anyone could deny a systemic, damaging anti-trans prejudice. How could this even have happened if it weren’t a systemic, damaging prejudice?
Mandolin,
Huh? I didn’t mention Ann.
My point, which is probably quite muddied, is that objections to the mistreatment of transsexuals within self-proclaimed progressive spaces is most commonly limited to “those transsexuals over there” who are not presently occupying the same self-proclaimed progressive space as the people expressing their moral outrage.
When it comes to dealing with the issues raised by transsexuals who happen to occupy the same self-proclaimed progressive space as the nons who previously were morally outraged, most nons decide that THEIR discriminatory practices are perfectly okay.
It’s a variation on the theme “Gays and lesbians are okay, I just don’t want my child / neighbor / best friend being one.” and “Equal rights for gays and lesbians are okay, except for all the rights I don’t want them to have, like the right to marry.”
I wasn’t arguing with you; I was agreeing with you.
There’s just a series of debates going on right now that’s about whether or not it’s okay for liberals to call Ann Coulter an “ugly tranny” and such, which rang similarly to me to what you were saying. It’s the same repellent idea that trans-rights are only okay so long as they are convenient.
Anyway, didn’t mean to cause drift, just to comment on a resonance and add support.
Mandolin,
Oh, okay. I was wondering how she came into the picture.
Do you have links to people calling her an ugly tranny? The irony of nons calling another non an “ugly tranny” because a non-queer called another non-queer a “faggot” is simply too much.
Feministe links to Sadly, No! — http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2007/03/02/for-shame-ann-coulter/ — where the caption of a photo reads: “Above: Coulter’s appearance nothing like that of unskilled drag queen” (this is in response to criticism that Sadly, No! is willing to endorse epithets that are useful to them being mean to someone they don’t like, even if they are wounding to everyone else who shares the trait)
Twisty at I Blame the Patriarchy — http://blog.iblamethepatriarchy.com/2007/03/03/liberal-dudewatch-07-commentary-on-commentary/ — links to a comment thread where descriptions such as “tranny + skank = trank?” “That Coulter guy sure is an ugly dude.” and “I ‘ read’ her as a tranny the very first time I saw a photo of her. It is that obvious. And trannies ARE faggots, they’re gayer than gay. So who’s the faggot now?” appear in an ostensibly liberal context.
Mandolin,
Thanks for the links.
Wow. Pretty embarrassing stuff.
Pingback: international women’s day « Trinifar
Pingback: Trans Florida City Manager Fired « Creative Destruction
I look at it like this, Largo was within thier rights to fire thier city manager for being dishonest and non-truthful. But, here is the fine print! What law is on the books that intails dishonesty about ones future plans (prior restraint come to mind) of changing ones gender (in in fact, medically speaking, correcting ones outer body to match one’s inner vision of themselves) and by doing so must (or face termination) report this monumental decision to bigoted, sanctamonious, low lifes like Black. What manner of secrets is she maintaining in her own pathically little existence that she should be disqualified from her post for. I myself am a Transsexual and the last time I checked, my IQ, feelings, intellect, education, morals, ethics and belief system did not get removed while my life was being corrected on an operating table. One does not become and idiot and untrustworthy just because of what is between his/her legs. Black should be reminded that she to can be replaced for any bullshit reason as well, and those who think that they know all, have failed to learn the most important thing was that they truely know very little.
p.s. nice pic
britgirlsf, I recommend the book Kingdom Coming by Michelle Goldberg. Now that Congress has changed hands, it’s a tad out of date, but the majority of the folks it looks at are still major players. It is a well researched and down right frightening look at the mentality of the “Christian Nationalist,” not to mention a good argument to why that term is a more accurate description of the dangerous religious right movement folks than “Christian Republican,” or “Fundi.” Long story short, it will explain the revisionist reality mentality that honestly believes in a “gay agenda.” Here’s a hint, it’s not just about equal rights, it’s the subversion all things worth protecting—nothing like fear of a perceived enemy to galvanize power.
P.S. impressive drawing, Ampersand.
I don’t think it’s fair to say “of course” the bad guy in this is a Republican. I find that anti-trans hatred is often bipartisan.
Social scientists have found exactly two tests that can predict general prejudice: the Right Wing Authoritarian scale (sample: “There are many radical, immoral people in our country today, who are trying to ruin it for their own godless purposes, whom the authorities should put out of action.”) and the Social Dominance Orientation scale even more. “Double Highs” win the gold medal in prejudice. The pdfs here contain more information. Now, when they gave members of the U.S. House and Senate the RWA test, Democrats scored all over the map but with fewer, mostly Southern politicians at the high end of the RWA spectrum. Republican politician scores all clustered near that end except for the ones from Connecticut. Ten of their caucuses outscored all Democratic respondents except the Senators from Mississippi. The author (see previous link) did not test their Social Dominance Orientation because the test didn’t exist yet, but gives reasons for thinking that right-wing politicians would get high scores there as well. He also describes the relationship between RWA scores and positions on various issues, as well as the precise meaning of correlations in the social sciences. He does not mention trans issues, and technically I suspect that even Democratic politicians would support equality less than you or I at the present time.
hf writes:
I’m sure that’s true and all that, but when it comes to trans, it’s just plain irrelevant.
There are people here whom I’m certain would score very low on the RWA scale who none the less love telling transsexuals what to do, where to do it, and why they are all very confused people who just need to be self-accepting and put down the bottle of pills.
The difference between left and right on the subject of “Why is the tranz evil?” is one of WHY is the tranz evil. On the right the tranz is evil because their religion says so. On the left the tranz is evil because the tranz lacks self-acceptance or wants to rape women’s bodies.
Many of the longest, most heated threads on feminist boards — where I’m sure the RWA scores for many participants would be well-below average — have revolved around just how tragic, misguided, duped, fooled, evil, patriarchal, wrong, etc. the tranz are. If someone were to graph right / left political orientation against transsexual and transgender acceptance, my guess is that the greatest degree of trans acceptance lies in the middle. On the right, it’s a religious and morality issue. On the left, it’s a self-acceptance and cultural appropriation issue.
I’ve never seen a poll of this sort (hey, Amp — can you do polls?!?), but I’d wager than if a poll were conducted and the question was “Is it acceptable for the following groups to embrace the cultural signifiers of group to which they feel most strongly attracted?” and you listed race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, religion and gender, that this board would score fairly high for all but gender, and if you then asked people “Why do you feel this way about gender?” that trans would come up. At which point the thread would become one of countless thousands of trainwreck threads about tranz.
I’ve never met this middle you speak of, and believe that it may be very difficult to locate. Meeting different people seems to decrease one’s RWA score more than any other factor. (I think I pointed out a corollary of this in the last train wreck, before reading Altermeyer’s work.) I urge you to read the research itself before you form a conclusion on this point.
hf,
I did read the paper.
My comment is that having the sort of politics or personality that might predict a high (or low) RWA score is simply irrelevant to the subject of transsexuality, in large part because the reasons that transsexuality is “wrong” differ between the ends of the political spectrum.
Here’s an example — if you take “authoritarianism” solely as some kind of strong and unquestioned belief, there’s no difference between believing “Gays are evil” and “Bigots are evil”. And yet, if you look at RWA scores for people who believe “Gays are evil” and “Bigots are evil”, you’d see that “Gays are evil” believers likely score significantly higher in terms of RWA. Right?
My observation of people’s attitudes towards transsexuality is that on the political right, religion provides the rationale for opposing transsexuality, much as it provides the rationale for opposing homosexuality. On the left, the rationale isn’t religion, precisely for the same reason that those on the left tend to view homosexuality more favorably. But on the left, the rationale is that it’s part of the Medical Industrial Establishment, it’s proof of lack of self-acceptance, it’s reinforcing gender stereotypes, and so on down the line. Taken as general concepts, there’s nothing wrong, in my mind, with opposing, say, the plastic surgery industry, or the any number of other instances of medicalizing things that aren’t in need of being medicalized. So in this sense, being opposed to transsexuality is seems more like being opposed to Bad Stuff in their minds.
What I think happens with transsexuality — recalling that I said the middle was less of a problem than either extreme — is that they get to know the person moreso than the dogma. These days most people seem to know, or have known, someone who changed sex. It’s not that they don’t know, or haven’t met, a transsexual, it’s how their experience was filtered by their politics.
Even amongst question-authority lefties, the doctrine that transsexuality is wrong (just as bigotry is wrong — remember my earlier comment) has, in their minds, a sound and rationale basis. They’ve often examined and critically explored transsexuality, but using a set of tools which are, in the minds of transsexuals, ill-suited to the task. No better disconnect illustrates that better than when a “Self-acceptance is wonderful!” person meets a stealth transsexual —
“You should have more self-acceptance and be out.”
“I am out — I’m out as a woman.”
The problem comes down the this paragraph —
How do you know men and women are equal? Did you work it out for yourself? Are you willing to change your mind? Are the races equal? Are you willing to change your mind about that?
There are things that people hold as true and inviolable — bigotry is wrong, men and women should be treated as equals, racism is evil, patriarchy is evil, etc. We hold many of these things no less true than high RWAs hold their own specific believes. We’ll question other things, but there are topics we have removed from the table. And the more the political left one moves, the more certain things become more important.
First, you appear to be talking about private citizens. I referred to politicians like the one in the original post.
Second, you know if you read the whole book that people with high RWA scores tend to ‘remove topics from the table’ in a fundamentally different way when it comes to government action (the original topic).
And last, I still don’t know what you mean by calling these tolerant people middle-of-the-road. In my experience most American voters would call your friends’ attitude screamingly liberal.
This whole thing is so pathetic. It’s just so sad to see people like this woman and Commission so brainwashed by religion that they propogate hate and have no qualms about violating people civil rights – or what SHOULD be our rights.
Don’t just blog about this CALL the bitch up on the phone – AND the Mayor – TAKE their time.
Commissioner Mary Gray Black
(727) 587-6702
Fax (727) 587-6797
Commission@largo.com
BE NICE – and if they hang up call back ONCE – say “oh I’m sorry we got disconnected.” They will try to block your call – just ask for Mary.
ACTION needs to be taken on these things – notification – I just found out about it.
Women didn’t get the right to vote until they marched on Washington. Blacks didn’t get equal rights until they marched on Washington, in the millions.
Gay and transgender people will not get equal rights until MILLIONS OF US MARCH ON WASHINGTON – and stop tolerating the bigotry of the religious right.
Just my opinion…
Well, this may or may not be the place, but here goes.
I’m left-leaning. Probably more liberal than radical. I’m a woman, and sexual orientation-wise I’m bisexual, heavily balanced on the heterosexual end. I was attracted to a M2F transsexual, but didn’t know she was a transsexual initially. Although a relationship did not develop, we are still friendly. Meanwhile, as a result of the attraction I educated myself a bit on transsexual/cisgendered issues and I’m glad I had the opportunity to do so.
So I know this isn’t statistical information, this is anecdotal information. All I can say is some of us here on the left aren’t interested in pathologizing (not self accepting) or demonizing (gender stereotyping) transsexuals.
Oh, yeah, and those people in Largo made a big mistake, in my humble opinion. It seems pretty clear that someone who shoudn’t have had access to the information decided to out the city manager, before she could out herself, which it sounds like she was planning on doing, but on her own schedule.
As for Mary Black, it is a mystery how she got elected, and has kept her seat, if those stories about her are true.
Sorry, Amp, I don’t really like the drawing. I feel sorry for Mary Black (even if she is instrumental in this mis-begotten firing).
Eva writes:
It’s very likely also that no one violated any real confidence, although Stanton did make that accusation.
Staton had been on female hormones for two years and had been undergoing electrolysis as well. There’s a point where all of that work starts to change ones appearance from very typically male and masculine to more typical of females and feminine. While this kind of thing is often imperceptible to someone who sees a person day in and day out, someone who’s not seen a person in six months to a year will notice some heavy duty changes. Two years is a VERY long time to be taking contrasexual hormones and not expect people to notice, even at Staton’s age (41).
I’m very torn about this situation. On the one hand, it has all the classic signs of discrimination against people on the basis of being transgendered. On the other hand, once the cat was out of the bag (I herd cats — I could have gotten the cat back in the bag, honest), Stanton should have put the plans in motion as quickly as possible to minimize disruption. That didn’t happen, and there was no sign it was going to happen, and therefore the situation would have been a slow simmering mess for the next 4 months while Stanton waited for the summer to arrive. That doesn’t strike me as being concerned about workplace impact, which for an executive is a bad thing.
The bible thumpers have a stronghold in Florida and if up to them separation of church and state would not be a reality for USA .
Thank goodness for other state retirees who move here or we would have to change our name to FloriDUH Christian fanatical state .
Granted not all Florida residents/’natives” are bible thumping hypocrites in fact most are not but christian fanatics certainly have a big representation in Floridas politics unlike anything I have ever seen in any other state.