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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (Dec. 19, 2003)
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MILGARD REPLACEMENT WINDOWS MILGARD HAS A WINDOW FOR EVERY HOMEOWNER VINYL ___ is the perfect choice for those who never want to paint windows ever again. d S E Q l s for those who want color on the outside and the option to paint their new windows. is perfect for those who love the beauty of real wood on the inside of their windows. We are certified Milgard installers and have been selling and installing Milgard windows for over 26 years in the Portland area. If you would like to change your old windows to new Milgard windows at a reasonable price, please call anytime for a courteous in-home proposal. 8 1 2 4 N . Denver www.insulofeciwindowcorp.com M IM M I Butin*** 4 M mm r v i . i ¿ n i . a i . I vTV B M I ■ W l lip i l . k n l f i U v l y W i l . A . . / . l u i w u v i i SD S kss very once in a while, some story or other com pels me to read Just Out. 1 should know better. “ Breaking the Binary Barrier” broke no new ground (Dec. 5]. It’s a missed opportunity to write something truly new and meaningful, hut it’s no worse than what we’ve come to expect. Another story boldly proclaims you’ve found someone actually thinking in new ways— in this case about trans identity (“Start the Ball Rolling"). Ho-hum. While new to nontrans peo ple, the thinking itself is not new. What’s news worthy? Why, it’s a nontrans person that’s doing the thinking. Am 1 being unfair when I wish Just Out would have recognized trans people for doing the true groundbreaking work years ago? So, by the time I’d read all this, l was feeling this issue was a waste of paper. Because I’d turned right to the articles, I hadn’t realized that you’d gone out of your way to he vicious. Your “Just Asking” question was what ? If you’re gay or lesbian, would you date a bisexual person? What, not interested in knowing whether hi people would he willing to date prejudiced gays and lesbians? Please. After a halfhearted attempt to throw the hi community a hone, you invite nonbi people to stereotype us while locking us out of the con versation. Well, at least we can enjoy the holi days—as long as we obey "gay and lesbian bound aries, of course," as your editorial insists [“Happier Holidays’’]. Does that include a limit on who 1 date for the next three weeks? Oops, and probably no one should date me, since I’m a tranny and thus might fall outside your gay and lesbian boundaries. If you think that community forums are only for “gays and lesbians” and that you should set the boundaries for everyone reading your maga zine, why don’t you just state on your cover: Just Out, the IN publication for the CAY &. LESBIAN population. It’s easier on our emotions if we know from the beginning that we’re not welcome. D ia n a C o u r v a n t Portland M aking am ends To t h e E d ito r : I n the article “Take Cover" in the Dec. 5 Just Out, I read yet another misunderstanding of what the Constitution actually is: It is a not a set of laws, hut rather a framework within which laws must conform. When Andrew Sullivan says the Federal Marriage Amendment, “should it pass, raises a very real legal question (if whether churches that perform same-sex marriages would he vio lating the Constitution,” he’s completely off base. The only ones who can violate the C on stitution are governmental lawmaking entities. If the proposed amendment passed, the only constitutional question would he if someone tried to create a law banning churches from perfonn- ing and/or recognizing same-sex marriages, which would conflict with the First Amendment’s sepa ration of church and state. Aside from that, it Bob Ross, 1 9 3 4 -2 0 0 3 Garland Horner Owner CCB# 19095 To t h e E d ito r : would only invalidate legal recognition of same- sex unions, which is the status quo in many areas anyhow (though hopefully not for much longer). Likewise, Dave Ressler is slightly off when he says, “ In a church, you get the sacred marriage with the civil marriage thrown in” ("Just Ask ing”!. In fact, they are separate things as I under stand it: The civil marriage isn’t done until the parties have signed the legal documents (though I think some of the verbiage in the ceremony is required by the civil marriage as well). A la n B a t ie Portland Study b a se le ss To t h e E d it o r : n the article titled “Sexual Identity Hard- Wired by Genetics,” Reuters reported Oct. 20 that one’s sexual or gender identity is “wired into the genes,” citing the new research by U CLA geneticist Eric Vilain and colleagues. According to Vilain, the findings would sug gest that “sexual identity is rooted in every person’s biology before birth” and that this knowledge may he used to ensure that intersex babies are assigned the correct gender. “If physicians could predict the gender of newborns with ambiguous genitalia at birth, we would make less mistakes in gender assignment," Vilain said. However, none of this is actually established or discussed in the actual research paper this news report is based on. The actual research published in Molecular Brain Research is titled “Sexually Dimorphic Gene Expression in Mouse Brain Precedes Gonadal Differentiation,” and this title summa rizes the entire paper accurately: This study shows that female and male mice develop differ ent brain structure even before their gonads are formed. The significance of this study is that sex differences in the brain have been traditionally said to he caused by the different levels of hor mones produced by the gonads— testes for males, ovaries for females. Vilain et al. observed sex differences in the brain prior to the forma tion of sexually specific gonads, which suggests that there are other mechanisms that cause brain sex differences than honnones. Interesting discovery, hut how does that show that gender identity is “hard-wired” ? The paper does not address this question at all, hut it would he ridiculous to claim to have discovered the nature of gender identity in a study using mice, because mice do not report their gender identity to researchers like human subjects do. And besides, is research from the mice sexuality really generalizable to the human population? Vilain’s application of his “findings” to the intersex controversy is also ethically questionable. If there were really a way to predict a child’s gen der accurately, would that justify surgically muti lating the child to fit into her or his “true gender"? Intersex activists are seeking to end shame, secre cy and traumatic medical treatments that are not necessary, safe nor effective— not an end to "mis takes” of assigning the "wrong" gender. Besides, the methodology Vilain used for studying the brain structure of a mice involves cracking its head and grinding brain— not an I tr a n s itio n s INSULATED WINDOW CORPORATION 5 0 3 2 8 3 -9 4 8 1 Unw elcom e mat B oh Ross, publisher of the weekly Bay Area Refxnter in San Francisco, died of complica tions from diabetes Dec. 10. He was 69. Ross was horn April 2, 1934, in New York City. He moved to San Francisco in 1956 after being discharged from the Navy. A pioneering gay journalist as well as an influential activist, Ross’ support for accurately and powerfully covering the San Francisco sex ual minorities community was often reflected in the paper. O f particular note was the Aug. 13, 1998, issue in which the B A R. had no AIDS- rclatcd obituaries to print for the first time since the start of the epidemic. The banner front-page headline that week read simply: “No obits.” Ross is survived by many friends and family members. A memorial service will he held in January at Herbst Theatre.