One of my pet peeves in gay activism is when people fail to understand that the fight for reproductive rights/health and the fight for LGBT equality are the same damned fight. It’s about people who are not straight, white, Christian men having access to full freedom and equality in this country, over our bodies, our sex lives, our access to the same Constitutional rights as everyone else — in short, it’s about all of our lives. When one fight suffers, the other fight suffers.
Here’s a real life example of that! The Memphis Gay and Lesbian Community Center has offered a pioneering HIV testing program for several years, which is open to all, regardless of sexual orientation. Until tonight, that is:
Memphis, TN, February 8, 2012: Memphis Gay and Lesbian Community Center (MGLCC) will be unable to offer Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) testing tonight and for the foreseeable future. For more than three years, MGLCC has collaborated with Planned Parenthood to provide the only regularly-scheduled, after-hours HIV testing in the Mid-South. This afternoon, Planned Parenthood representatives informed MGLCC that they do not have the funds necessary to provide the HIV testing for the foreseeable future because the State of Tennessee has denied Planned Parenthood access to grants for HIV prevention. The cut in funding for Planned Parenthood has put MGLCC’s model HIV testing program in jeopardy.
Despite MGLCC’s core mission to focus on the needs of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) community, the HIV testing program offered at MGLCC has always been open to anyone needing a test. MGLCC does not discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. MGLCC believes that helping clients find out their HIV status and find access to appropriate HIV care is an essential service not only for the individual, but for the health and well-being of our entire city. More than 500 individuals have been tested by the HIV testing program offered by MGLCC since the program’s inception in 2008. Will Batts, Executive Director of MGLCC, says “Our strong collaboration with Planned Parenthood to provide HIV testing has improved the lives of hundreds of people every year. Losing this vital program will put the health and well-being of many Memphians at risk. MGLCC considers the setback to our HIV testing program a great tragedy, but we hope the setback will be only a temporary one.”
You see, organizations like Planned Parenthood, as well as local LGBT community centers, offer programs and services that benefit entire communities. Planned Parenthood does a hell of a lot more than just “abortion,” though that is one important thing they do. The Memphis Gay & Lesbian Community Center offers programs that benefit people far beyond the local LGBT community. And now the jihad against Planned Parenthood is directly affecting the center’s ability to serve people.
Wake up, people. If you’re not involved in both of these fights, you’re missing the big picture.
I’m very much involved in both fights. I’ve never used PP but they provide invaluable services to millions, and I’m sick to death of the moralizing, lying busybodies working to undermine that.
Thanks for all you do, but a couple of concerns with this post:
First, it is not such a simple matter for some of us to equate abortion rights issues with LGBT rights issues. This reminds me of a dilemma I faced with a family member who was shocked when I had a problem being open-minded enough to accept his stand against the deity of Christ. — He figured since I’d struggled so much with the religious community over being gay, that surely I’d be more open-minded. — But the deity of Christ and the religious implications of homosexuality are on two completely different planes of significance, from my perspective. The debates with regard to abortion rights also are different and may be contemplated separately, even with “the big picture” in view.
Secondly, the common use of the word “jihad” here may be offensive to muslim neighbors and friends. For muslims, this word has broader meaning including internalized efforts to rid themselves of offenses within their own faith, which Christians can relate to in our traditional idea of resistance to inward tendencies to be less than perfect toward God and one another. It makes sense to be careful not to bring bigotry-loaded terminology into a fight against bigotry, right?
Honestly, I wouldn’t even go for that bait. It’s like you seriously want people to start saying that “well, gays want to kill babies now too.”
As far as corporate policy decisions go, PP shouldn’t even be involved in funding those kinds of centers, seeing how it’s pretty hard for gay couples to conventionally produce children. At least from what I’ve been told…
In all seriousness, it’s not a criticism, but throwing in Planned Parenthood into this whole thing is a little tangential, and kind of a hard sell.
Planned Parenthood’s name does not inherently say “Helping Straight People Have Babies”. The very idea of “planned” suggests that there is thought going in to it. Just like when a gay couple decides to have a baby.
Also, mammograms aren’t exactly about reproduction.
Richard & Emma,
In this particular case, PP was the only agency able & willing to collaborate to provide gay-friendly and non-judgmental testing and prevention counseling. Straight people obviously can get HIV, too, and straight people also took advantage of this free weekly testing opportunity because it was the only regular after-hours testing available in Memphis. (MGLCC is welcoming to both gay & straight people).
Also, do I really have to point out that sexual orientation isn’t so cut and dried for many people? Some folks are bi. Some folks identify as straight, but sometimes have same-gendered sex too. HIV does not care how you are exposed…it does not discriminate.
The clinicians and educators at Planned Parenthood are experts on sexual health–not just for women, but for men and for transgendered people too. This “defunding” of Planned Parenthood is a loss for gay, straight–and all people in Memphis.
Evan, I completely agree that an assault on the rights of women to make decisions about their own bodies is completely related to the assault on LGBT peoples’ attempts to attain civil rights.
Misogyny is the primary root of homophobia and probably transphobia too, though I haven’t parsed that one out. If you’ve ever noticed, all of the religious objections to LGBT people come from patriarchally oriented religions (eg. orthodox Jews and Christians, Mormons, Roman Catholics, Southern Baptists, most Muslim groups, most Evangelicals), while ones with women in (relative) roles of equality in leadership are much more supportive.
Funny, that.
True Paul, and you can see evidence of that with the women priests and bishops in the Episcopal Church (and others).
For what it’s worth, I heard that only 3% of the work that PP does is related to abortion referrals. The ultra conservatives make it sound like PP is nothing but an assembly line of abortions.
You are ENTIRELY correct Evan.
I have personlly heard wing nuts (it is NEVER a compliment…and calling yourself one is NOT a way to encourage others to take you seriously) openly admit that “once we stop abortion, and women take a more traditional role in society (they wont stop at abortion by the way. After that comes the attack on the pill, etc) then we can work on ‘homosexuals’ (of course, they are not educated or polite enough to use the word gay, and they know the word homosexual frightens some people)
If Planned Parenthood, and womens rights falls, that is a tragedy in its own right.
But if they fall, WE are next, and DON’T delude yourself otherwise.
Paul, Gary, EXCELLENT points on the role of women in faith, and their influence in society.
Thank you to the commenters who get it.
Keep explaining it for those who don’t, and I will too.
Why is it that right wing fundageli-bellies are so fond of policies and issues and causes that are, in essence, fundamentally just plain mean?
It’s like they positively revel in making other’s lives as crappy as possible. They take pride in being total s***s to all who are not like them.
WTF???
I’ve read somewhere (sorry I don’t remember where) that for poor, rural women, the general health exams that they along with their reproductive health exams at Planned Parenthood might be the only medical care they get on any kind of regular basis.