I wish her luck!

SusanCarleton — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 16:59:14 -0500

Yet another employee confuses 'job description' with 'personal agenda' it seems.

ARGH.

I posted a link to a similar story on my blog a few days ago, about Irish Rail not allowing same-gender partners of Free Pass holders to travel with them...while allowing unmarried partners of the opposite sex do so. Argh again. I'm hoping that publicity helps to sort things out...so in that vein, THANK you for this post and for helping to keep these incidents public.

What a world.

Susan

stonyriverfarm.blogspot.com

www.carersgroup.com

Dirty words

Vered — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 11:53:01 -0500

My first thought was that the word "lesbian" describes sexual preference, and to many people, anything sexual is dirty.

But then I thought that "straight" describes a sexual preference too and is not "dirty".

I am curious to know if "homosexual" is a dirty word. Was the word "homosexual" filtered out from MySpace?

---

I blog at MomGrind

I manage my kids' activities at UpToUs

Woman Forced to Leave Federal Building for Wearing a Lesbian.com T-Shirt

no_I_am_zoe — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 01:51:14 -0500

Early last week, Lapriss Gilbert was forced to leave a federal building by a security guard who thought her t-shirt was offensive. The "offensive" t-shirt simply read lesbian.com across the front. The guard, who works for a private company contracted by the Department of Homeland Security, cited The Rules and Regulations Governing Conduct on Federal Property document as his reason for removing Gilbert from the building. She was later let back in and escorted to the front of the line by a different security guard working for the same company. Gilbert has contacted a lawyer and plans to sue the private security company. Read the full story here.

This story really does not surprise me, people have been banned from all kinds of places for wearing all sorts of "offensive" t-shirts. Lisa Stone wrote on the banned t-shirts topic in her BlogHer post Beyond "sorry"- Cindy Sheehan, Beverly Young, and your own closet. At the end of her post she asks some questions to all t-shirt wearers.

What do we the people know? What do we need to know? Bottom line: I'm not sure the general public knows anything about our t-shirt wearing and baring rights. And knowing whether and when you can be arrested for wearing such a t-shirt seems pretty fundamental to life in the United States.

Important questions, without any real clear cut answers. You can also find many, many more examples of banned shirts, some even leading to arrests, at the blog Banned T-Shirts.

Mr Queer covered this story on her blog, MsQueer. Her take is,

Now, what happens the next time some sub-contractor decides to super-impose his/her prejudice, moral judgements, or "values" in a public situtation like that? Even the ACLU said this type of discrimination in a Federal Building was rare - but it happened .
Wearing a T-Shirt that sports a slogan comes under the First Rights Amendment of Freedom of Speech. I've seen alot more offensive shirts than that. And how about those boys who walk in with their shorts half way down to their knees and their underwear showing? What kind of treatment do they get?
read full post Watch What You Wear to a Federal Building

Being banned for wearing an offensive or objectionable t-shit isn't a problem that is easily solved. The problem lies in the people with the power to do the banning. I think once given a little power and limited guidelines to operate within, many people can't help but extrapolate that power and interpret the guidelines it to serve their own interests in some fashion or another. What is unknown about the Gilbert story is what else this guard would find offensive enough to seek the removal of the offender, and if he has ever asked anyone else to leave because their clothing was offensive. Was this really an issue of GLBT discrimination, or would he react equally if the shirt had said Pornstar, or straight girl, or Be Happy Not Gay, or No Means No, Well Maybe if I am Drunk. I can't imagine that hundreds of t-shirts, or other clothing that many would find offensive don't pass through that federal building every day. So why this girl? Why that shirt?

Renee Gannon posed a similar question in her post Woman Ejected from Federal Building for Wearing a Lesbian T-Shirt at Lesbiatopia.

Now, I must ask you this: what do you think would have happened if a man walked into that same federal building wearing the same t-shirt or even worse, a t-shirt with a naked woman on it or some other type of woman-objectifying message?
My guess is nothing. I'll let you be the judge.

What I can't get over about this story is that just the word lesbian was deemed offensive by this guy. I could understand a little more if the shirt had read 'I Fuck Girls', or 'I eat pussy.' I think most people would agree that would be construed by most as offensive. Or maybe if there was some sort of racy graphic included. But just the word lesbian? Really?

Unfortunately, this sort of thought is not limited to that one security guard. Shortly before the t-shirt story came out, I had read on Tina-cious.com that she had tried to make a few banners for a myspace page and the generator kept kicking out the word lesbian, leaving her with "book club" instead of "lesbian book club." She emailed the website. Their response

...We developed our filter quite a while ago using a large list of words associated with obscenities and pornography.
We have adjusted our filter accordingly to meet your needs.
read full post Don't Ever Take Down a Fence Until You Know Why It Was Put Up

The website did adjust their filter to let lesbian go through so she could make her banners. But it's sad that the word lesbian was ever on the list of words considered obscene or pornographic. It's also sad that in some respects I can understand why it was on the list, you ever try to google the word lesbian in conjunction with just about any other word? You'll have to sift through tons and tons of porn to find what you're looking for. Unless you're looking for lesbian porn, in which case you're in luck.

So how do we go about taking back the word lesbian so it's not a dirty word? Can we? And is it really up to us?

BlogHer - Woman Forced to Leave Federal Building for Wearing a Lesbian.com T-Shirt - Comments

I wish her luck!

Dirty words

Woman Forced to Leave Federal Building for Wearing a Lesbian.com T-Shirt