I know there have already been three separate well commented diaries touching on the Joy Reid situation. They have largely focused on whether she is guilty or not of the authorship of some pretty homophobic and transphobic posts on her blog more than 10 years ago. It has also been pointed out she’s not been the friendliest of allies on Twitter to the trans community. For a moment, I’d like to set aside that argument and discussion and instead try to look towards a path forward, if that is possible, where both sides can be content with the result. I won’t say her guilt or innocence isn’t relevant, because it is, but I’d like to put forth two ideas or suggestions for Joy Reid, regardless of whether she or did not write the things that she is alleged to have written.
Substantial damage to her reputation in the LGBT community is already done, even if she manages to prove her innocence for the pre-2008 posts, there is still her more recent comments that are indisputably hers, particularly her very transphobic and insensitive comments about Chelsea Manning. She needs to be able to demonstrate that she is committed to equality and respect for LGBT people, not just for the sake of the LGBT community itself, but for the larger progressive community. That she is a journalist provides her some excellent opportunities to do precisely that in the stories that she covers. I have two story ideas for her to cover that are stories that should be told and which I think would go a long way towards alleviating the pain and conflict some of us are feeling right now over the possibility that she wrote the hateful things that are being alleged.
First is a story that only seems to be getting worse as time goes by, not better, even as LGBT acceptance in society has improved. That acceptance is often illusory for transgender women, particularly transgender women of color. In fact 2017 was the worst year on record, according to the Human Rights Campaign, for murder of transgender people with the organization counting at least 28 such murders nationwide last year. This year isn’t far off that pace with eight such murders already accounted for so far. Most of them have been transwomen and most have been persons of color. Reid, who has made a name for herself in covering the intersection of race, sex and politics, would make an excellent candidate to do an in-depth piece or documentary on the epidemic of murder of transwomen of color, the struggle of transgender people to find jobs and housing, especially with it being legal to discriminate against them for being trans in most states, and the difficulties they can encounter in even the mundane things most of us take for granted, such as being able to go to a public restroom. In an age where place like North Carolina pass their notorious HB2, or Indiana where Pence signed into law a detestable “religious freedom” act or Texas where the powerful Lt. Governor almost single handedly tried to get the state to pass a pretty detestable restroom bill, something as simple as going to a restroom to pee becomes a major struggle.
The second story idea I’d like to see her cover is meant to assuage one of the posts she allegedly wrote that gay men such as myself find particularly odious and reprehensible. If she wrote it, it is something she needs to address. If she didn’t write it, this story would go a long ways towards proving herself. The alleged post I’m referring to is one where she allegedly expresses “concerns that adult gay men tend to be attracted to very young, post-pubescent types, bringing them ‘into the lifestyle’ in a way that many people consider to be immoral” and that “gay rights groups seek to organize very young, impressionable teens who may have an inclination that they are gay.” It is an allegation that cuts to the core of many gay men. If there is a blood libel for gays, that is it. The accusation ignores the fact that our society places high emphasis on youthful beauty and sexualizes youth in ways that are far from unique to the gay community. It also fails to understand a fundamental difference between the gay community and other minority communities such as African-Americans, Hispanics/Latinos and even women. Here is how I explained the difference in a diary I wrote nearly eight years ago now about the controversy here about Obama’s “It Gets Better” video:
Because sexual orientation is something we discover in ourselves at some point, usually before adulthood, it should be apparent that the LGBT community is profoundly different than other minority communities, lacking a sort of multigenerational institutional memory passed down by being part of that community from birth. The impact of this cannot be understated. While less true today than probably 20 years ago, most African-Americans growing-up know and are taught about the struggle of their forebears for Civil Rights. Fredrick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, Booker T. Washington, W.E.B. Du Bois, A. Philip Randolph, Bayard Rustin, Thurgood Marshall, Dr. King. Knowledge of people such as these by African Americans became more spiritual and cultural than merely academic. Being a part of the community wasn't taught, it was experienced. Each generation was able to build on the previous, to serve, directly, as the heirs of the legacy of the prior. The same can be said of the Hispanic community and even to a certain extent of the women's rights movement, passed from mother to daughter.
The LGBT community lacks this continuity that serves as a means of aggregating influence and clout. Each generation of the LGBT community must be taught in a much more academic sense, the history of gay rights because growing up, LGBT history was something to shield children from, not openly embrace. It takes LGBT people going out and finding other LGBT people of prior generations for this transmission of institutional memory to occur.
The outreach the gay community makes to youths, the “gay rights groups seek to organize very young, impressionable teens who may have an inclination that they are gay” is often seen by those outside the community as sexual predation. The work of organizations like the National Gay and Lesbian Taskforce, the Gay, Lesbian Straight Education Network and others isn’t some nefarious plot to nab unsuspecting straight teens and turn them gay by having sex with older gay men as some on the religious right would have people think. So I think this angle of the gay community trying to build its own institutional memory for its struggle for freedom and equality and how it contrasts with the African American community and with the feminist movement would be not only important and educational for Reid, but the public at large.
I’m still very conflicted about this whole controversy and despite the fact I’m leaning strongly on the side of her having written those things, I’m not at the point where I can say she should be fired for them. Ironically enough, it may be the strenuousness of her denial of authorship that is more likely to get her into trouble with MSNBC and the Daily Beast than what was actually written. I hope that, this would at least provide her an avenue to work back where we can all be in a better place: the communities hurt by her decade old comments could have light cast upon their struggles and the world could become a little more educated in the struggle for the pursuit of equality, tolerance and acceptance of LGBT people.