7.2001
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Hate takes another life
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S
omewhere down a dark, lonely road in Hills
boro, Loni Okaruru reached her last destina
tion. An act of gruesome violence ended her
life. As with so many other victims, we are left
to wonder not only about who might have done
this or why but about her final pain and the
future that was taken from her.
Despite media coverage that inappropriately
called her male, Loni was a transgender woman.
H ie road of transition in this culture can be dark
and frightening for every trans person.
W hat happened to her lurks like a predator
in the fearful comers of our minds, hut we build
our lives anyway, by small acts of affirmation and
courage, in the hope that safe haven is just
ahead. The sanctuary we seek is built in time
and space hut also within the heart. Sometimes
we just don’t make it home.
W hat will this sanctuary look like? It will
he somewhere, sometime, when what we are,
who we love and what we dare to dream will
be not just tolerated or accepted hut celebrat
ed by all.
For trans people, this means especially that
others will honor our courage to confront the
accidents of birth and culture that have separat
ed us from our true natures. We hope they will
hear our stories and recognize the same aspira
tions to happiness and wholeness that they feel
within themselves.
We wait to hear our real names spoken, our
real identities recognized beneath obscuring
flesh and our love returned in kind. As anyone
might in our places.
We do not yet know what turn on this long
road Loni might have taken that led to her
death. But she deserves our respects now, at
least, as the victim of a terrible crime.
Loni deserves to be remembered as someone
whose life did not fall easily into preordained
categories and to be remembered in a way that
does not label her in whatever category comes
to mind. She committed herself to being herself,
and in this world, that courage is not easily
come by.
Whatever else, Loni didn’t deserve to he
beaten to death and dumped in the weeds, any
more than she deserves to be called what she
wasn’t and couldn’t be. Let’s take this as a start
ing point to reconsider what prejudice can do
and the acts it can condone, inflicted with
intent to cause pain and to take away the future,
to steal the hope inside ourselves.
Such crimes wound us all. The Oregonian
must think carefully about the impact its cover
age of this terrible crime has on the people who
walk in Loni’s shoes every day.
It’s time to stop pretending that gender
minorities in this society aren’t the easy targets
for exclusion, assault, injury and violent death.
They are.
Loni’s death reminds us how such crimes
against transgender people seem so oppressively
possible. Those of us who know the tragic list of
transgender bias victims are brutalized anew
with each story.
It’s time for Oregon and the United States to
stop making excuses and enact legislation
against gender-based bias crime. It’s time for us to
honor Loni’s name, the steps she was taking to
live her life and dreams that were no less impor
tant than our own. Sanctuary may be within us,
but we still must find it together or not at all.
L ori B uckwalter
It’s Time, Oregon! Executive Director
R oey T horpe
Basic Rights Oregon Executive Director
Editor’s note: For more information visit the Internet
site iww.gender.org/remember/index.html.
Heteroconfusion
and bad ologies
T o T he E ditor :
appreciated your cover story “Surviving the
Ex-gay Movement" in the Aug. 17 edition of
Just Out.
I, too, am a survivor of one of the most influ
ential ex-gay ministries in the country, Portland
Fellowship. I made the decision to attend as a
bisexual Christian woman who aspired to
become a Presbyterian minister knowing full
well an honest disclosure of who I was would not
make ordination possible.
I was prayed with, for, “delivered," “coun
seled,” prodded, scoped, analyzed and self-
analyzed ad nauseum. I read and tried to apply
a stack of ex-gay books— a com bination of
had theology and twisted psychology in my
not-so-humhle opinion— and what was the
result?
No change. Yep, I’m still a bisexual.
Out of the many important points to make
about the ex-gay movement, the one I want to
suggest to you is that there is a difference
between heteroconfusion and people who are
really gay, lesbian, bisexual and trans. W hen
you hear about rumors of healings there, you
will find people helped out of heteroconfusion
who also usually have reconciled a fear-based
spirituality, not people who have “overcome
their gayness."
Our American culture is performance orient
ed, as are many of our conservative Christian
churches. We like winners!
It makes a far better church testimonial
and press if people claim to have “overcome
their homosexuality” rather than not being
able to change it. According to those stan
dards, those of us who don’t “win” in that area
are losers! It seems like it’s time to start recog
nizing and calling this what it is: false, inept
theology.
Today I am blessed to he part of Metropol
itan Community Church in Portland. I’ve
been integrating my spirituality with my sexu
ality instead o f compartmentalizing them
from each other, as often is taught in ex-gay
ministries.
I received a real “deliverance” from oppres
sion earlier this year when a gay Christian pas
tor prayed with me. I didn’t go looking for it. It
just happened. A huge weight literally lifted off
my shoulders.
My music ministry has come hack with
abundant passion. I’ve been leading worship
as part o f the “Celebration Singers,” and
songs I’m writing are being used in the wor
ship services.
The lesson for me has been that being a
Christian and being G L B T are compatible 100
percent! If you doubt it, come talk to me.
1
G eri N eiworth
Vancouver, Wash.
Never forged
never again
To t h e E d it o r :
am writing to inform your readers about a
very important historical initiative that is
unfolding.
T he Pink Triangle Coalition recently sub
mitted a proposal in a pending class-action
lawsuit settlement between two Swiss hanks
and gay and lesbian victims of the Nazis, their
heirs and public education/advocacy groups.
During and after World War II, these hanks
benefited financially by holding accounts for
Nazis who looted from their victims, by hold
ing accounts for companies that benefited
from the slave labor of the victims or by hold
ing the accounts o f the victims themselves,
I
many o f whom did not survive to claim their
assets.
T he coalition is particularly grateful to
U .S. Sen. Gordon Sm ith, R-Ore.; Portland
Mayor Vera Katz and City Commissioner Dan
Saltzman; state Sens. Kate Brown, D-Port-
land, and Ryan Deckert, D-Beaverton; and
Matthew Nelson, Equity Foundation execu
tive director. All o f them, along with other
leaders throughout the country, have submit
ted letters o f support in favor of our proposal
for reparations.
Scholars have uncovered documentation
proving 50,000 men were convicted simply
because of their sexual orientation under
Adolf H itler’s rule. O f those, we know of
15,000 who were sent to slave labor and death
camps; many were subjected to forced medical
experimentation.
In a proposal written for the court by
myself and Todd Presner, the coalition has
asked the U .S. federal court in charge of the
case to allocate 1 percent of the $1.25 billion
settlement to create a fund to help recognize
and address Nazi persecution o f gay and les
bian people. T his fund would he the first of its
kind.
The lawsuit prompting the court’s settlement
plan has led to the first-ever legal recognition
that gay people were systematically persecuted
by the Nazis. The settlement also provides com
pensation for the hanks’ unjust enrichment from
assets that the Nazis looted from the victims or
derived from slave labor.
I am hopeful that we will be successful in our
efforts. And when that day comes, I hope we all
will remember with gratitude those who have
used their positions to advocate for gay and les
bian victims of the Nazis.
J a im e
R.
B a lbo a
Pink Triangle Coalition Consultant
Judgment day
To t h e E d it o r :
’m moved to speak out in response to the
“Just Asking” item about “lesbo temping”
[Aug. 31.
I’ve spent a lifetime of confusion coming to
know my sexual orientation. At 80 years of age,
there is no doubt in my mind that 1 was horn
with a designed plan to he a lesbian. I challenge
scientific research to prove otherwise.
In younger years I was naive and deter
mined to “fit in,” as I worked my way through
three marriages and gave birth to one son
before I became aware at 56 of my sexuality.
T h e “stigm a” o f hom osexuality weighed
heavily in my heart as I was in constant bat
tle with the status quo to prove I wasn’t queer;
I battled to knock down whispered innuendo
against my reputation. I’d chosen military and
police careers and survived without the les
bian classification.
My Christian belief system pushed toward
acceptability as a heterosexual. It didn’t work
trying to he something I wasn’t and not know
ing why.
I chose to seek professional help and found
both straight and gay counselors. I’ve thanked
God for my awakening and the ability to live a
sane life without internal conflict.
My lesbian status opened a new world to me
of wonderful, intelligent, gifted people from all
walks of life. I no longer felt disturbed when I
realized my attraction to women, a yearning so
deep to love a woman, was good and normal for
me.
Into this mix of discovery I also began to
identify the uncomfortable and sometimes high
ly dangerous complexities living in an unfeeling,
ignorant heterosexual world. I began to realize
sexuality is an individual concern for both homo
i