AC4A Loves... and Hates...

Greetings friends! A few quick updates:

Per Rafael Mandelman, "Robert and Theresa are up for Pride Grand Marshal
this year. People should vote early and vote often. You can print and mail
in a ballot by clicking on the link below, or I think you can vote at the
corner of 18th and Castro starting this weekend."

AC4A's editorial remarks: Robert has been an amazing and very public friend
to AC4A, mobilizing allies and speaking truths that sometimes we could not.
And Theresa: those of us at the Badlands "Pink Saturday" picket (2005) will
never forget how Theresa intervened with the SFPD to defend our freedom of
assembly and speech rights, and keep everyone safe. Blurbs about both of
them are below.
http://www.sfpride.org/parade/images/EnglishBallot2007.pdf

Robert Haaland: Robert Haaland, 42, a transgender queer man, is tightly
woven into San Francisco's political fabric. In 2002 he became the first
transgender candidate to win an elective office in San Francisco when he won
a seat on the Democratic County Central Committee. He helped initiate and
ran openly gay Supervisor Tom Ammiano's 1999 mayoral write-in campaign and
is a former president of the Harvey Milk LGBT Democratic Club.

Apart from gay politics, Haaland has fought for social justice, including
housing rights, environmental issues, and labor rights. His eye is always on
disenfranchised people and neighborhoods. He sued the San Francisco Police
Department over its handling of transgender people in custody, has fought
landlord efforts to gut rent control, and routinely lobbies to protect city
services. An organizer for SEIU Local 790, Haaland sits on the city's Board
of Appeals.
The San Francisco Bay Guardian has named him a "local hero" and the Alice B.
Toklas LGBT Democratic Club honored Haaland with its Coalition Builder Award
for building and empowering the LGBT community.

"I feel completely honored and I was blown away," said Haaland about his
nomination. "This isn't about me as an individual - it's an acknowledgment
of all of our brothers and sisters in the LGBT community. To the extent that
I've been chosen to represent this larger community, I feel incredibly
humbled to stand in solidarity with them."

Theresa Sparks: Each time employment opportunities lured her away, Theresa
Sparks, 57, left her heart in San Francisco. A transgender straight woman,
she always returned, and in 1996, chose San Francisco for good.

Ever since she has fought for transgender protections and policies within
the city. As the first ever transgender member of the San Francisco Human
Rights Commission, she formed a task force between HRC and the San Francisco
Police Department and developed protocols for how the SFPD interacts and
deals with transgender individuals.

Sparks was an original member and chair of TG Rage [now Transgender Day of
Remembrance] and organized the first event held in the Castro in 1999. A
founding member of the Transgender Civil Rights Implementation Task Force,
she worked to pass transgender health benefits in the city. She served as
the Alice club's first transgender chair, and is a Horizons Foundation board
member. A Police Commission member, Sparks is employed as Good Vibrations'
chief executive officer. Sparks has been recognized as one of OUT
magazine's 100 LGBT Leaders in the United States, named a California
Legislature "Woman of the Year," and awarded the Human Rights Campaign's
Equality Award.
_._,_.___
*********************************
Speaking of Robert Haaland, he alerts us that Pride at Work is starting a
new Youth Organizing Project and is hosting a launch fund raiser on
Thursday, March 15 at 5:30 at 350 Rhode Island. Hope you can make it.
Details below!

"I would like to invite you to a fundraiser for Pride at Work that will fund
a new program called the Youth Organizing Project. Pride at Work has been at
the forefront of building coalitions between the labor movement and the
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender community in San Francisco.

Please join us on Thursday, March 15, 2007 at 5:30 PM at 350 Rhode Island
for our fundraiser and reception in support of Pride at Work's efforts.
Refreshments and entertainment will be provided. Friends are giving $100 and
will be noted in the program. Tickets are also available for $50 and $25.
(No one will be turned away for lack of funds.) All donations are tax
deductible."
For more details, visit http://leftinsf.com/blog/index.php/archives/1655

*********************************

* Slim, Pretty, White? Sorority Wants You (Other Women Need Not Apply)
*

[image: [ Delta Zeta ]]*WASHINGTON* (March 1, 2007) – If you're a young
woman who is of color, majors in math or science, or is overweight - there
is a place for you on campus. It's just not with Delta Zeta Sorority. In a
"membership review" that has a campus community outraged, national
representatives of the sorority dismissed all of the DePauw University
chapter's black, Korean, Vietnamese and overweight members.

The national sorority's efforts to revitalize its image and strengthen
recruitment efforts at DePauw University, resulted in only twelve members --
all of whom would be considered thin and "pretty" by conventional standards
-- being invited to remain and help grow the chapter. Six of those members
have quit the sorority in protest.

"College should be about cultivating the next generation of female
presidents, community leaders and executives -- not enforcing a narrow and
unrealistic Barbie-doll code of femininity," said Brittney Hoffman, Youth
Coordinator for GenderPAC. "Believe me, I work with college youth everyday
-- no matter who this sorority purges, they're not going to be able to
restrict the thinking of young women to focus only on make-up, model
figures, and men."

As part of the membership review, officials staged a recruitment event on
the DePauw campus that only included "pretty" chapter members and "slender"
sorority members from the Indiana University chapter. The remaining chapter
members were asked to remain in their rooms.

"They had these unassuming freshman girls downstairs with these 'plastic'
women from Indiana University, and 25 of my sisters hiding upstairs. It was
so fake, so completely dehumanized," said Kate Holloway, a senior who quit
the sorority during the membership review.

23 chapter members were transferred from active to alumna status, which
required them to vacate the sorority house and find alternate housing before
the start of the second semester. University officials have called the
"membership review" an unacceptable disruption in the academic lives of its
students, leaving many uncertain about housing arrangements and unable to
focus on year-end assignments. Several former members have pulled out of
classes - attributing their withdrawal to depression.
<http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?t=icxne6bab.0.l6ixe6bab.c9oyz8n6.281&ts=S0234&p=http%3A%2F%2Fhttp://www.gpac.org%2Fyouth%2Fstartchapter.html>

According to Hoffman, recent studies have linked hyper-sexualized ideals of
women to increasing rates of depression, low self-esteem, and eating
disorders among girls and women. A forthcoming University of Illinois study
of high school girls found that nearly one-half (47%) of students witnessed
girls being teased and verbally taunted for not being "feminine enough" and
one-third (34%) have seen girls who aren't "feminine enough" excluded from
groups.

Delta Zeta Sorority has issued a statement that summarily dismisses
accusations that the membership decisions were based on race or nationality.
The statement does not directly address any physical appearance or
popularity criteria that may have been used in the process.