On Thursday we reported that longtime activist Phyllis Randolph Frye had become the first transgender judge in Texas, after being appointed by Mayor Annise Parker. Well, just leave it to the Houston Area Pastors Council and the Fox affiliate to make an issue out of it:
The Houston Area Pastoral Council, which represents about 300 churches, has a big problem with the appointment. Executive Director Dave Welch says for years Frye has been undermining Texas marriage laws. He says the appointment confirms Mayor Parker, who is openly gay, is making her lifestyle a central part of her policy agenda.
“This is not just a benign act. This is someone (Frye) who is very well known as an aggressive activist on sexual diversity issues and very much against the mainstream of most of the people….As we all know municipal court judges are the first step in the elevation of different judgeships. They typically go on to civil district court judges or family court judges and beyond, so this is not a benign appointment. It’s a statement. It really is. We’ll be calling on the churches to stand up and be involved,” said Welch.
Even as a gay man, it’s hard for me to believe that the appointment wasn’t a statement.
Why is appointing a trans judge making a statement and appointing a gay judge is just inevitable b/c gay people make up every part of society? Trans people are fully capable of holding positions of distinguish in society. Maybe she appointed her b/c she’s the right person for the position? Not every trans person is a hooker or drag queen.
You’re a gay man – she’s a straight woman. So why is your opinion particularly relevant?
@Bryan..it sure is a statement….A statement that we have intelligent, talented people in the trans community who have much to contribute to society.
Congratulations Judge Frye!
Frankly I’m surprised that there isn’t more criticism and snarky comments from this gay community that’s in support of the transphobic news paper called “The Advocate (turning all trans people into drag queens)” along with the usual cast of bigotted cis gender people. Maybe mr. Bryan and Texas rightwing church based oppressors are shocked that there is a transwoman who is an accomplished proffessional that has earned a position as a judge.
Well, whether or not this appointee, Phylis Frye, is transgendered or not is not as important as if the person is of honesty and integrity which is what Frye says HE hopes people will see HIM as. The problem is that in my hot little hands right now I have legal pleadings signed by Frye which ask a judge in Bexar County to grant two out of county citizens of Texas name and gender id changes, which is a violation of Texas Statutory Law under the Texas Family Code. Therefore, I have a HUGE problem with Phylis Frye being appointed to this position and I do think anyone who takes a stance in their profession to the be the voice of transsexuals (a single minority group) rather than to carry out the law and maintain the integrity of such laws should be practicing law in Texas or anyplace else.
It is clear that this lawyer has a reputation in the community (just read online about getting your name and gender id changed in TX ) for venue shopping. One of his favorite judges was just ousted by a republican in Bexar County, that judge granted two name changes to out of county residents and at least one gender id change to a transgendered person who was not a resident of Bexar County…ILLEGAL! Venue shopping is also illegal. So, with this suspicion looming and if I know this I do not know how Mayor Parker could not know this since she is pictured at the Transgender Center in Houston online, I am sure she is plenty aware of all the goings on in that community and I am sure this has been in the works for some time.
Unfortunately I was in the process of a divorce when Phylis Frye signed my ex’s petition to be declared female and have a name change. This has in turn costs me thousands of dollars in legal fees as the name change and gender id change caused problems and modifications to the decree and there was extra litigation in court as well. So, I do not hold this person in high esteem regardless of what gender this person whishes he was born. Too bad the poison of political correctness does not allow narrow minded self-proclaimed open-minded people to realize the real tragedy that I have lived through having a husband who found the trans community in Houston, left his wife and children, and now we live in his wake as he enjoys his fantasy of being a “woman”.
How easy it is for the author of this column to call those who oppose this appointment biggots without any knowledge of what someone like myself and my children have been through. That’s just shameful.
Dear Tracy,
It’s hard to feel sympathy for someone who writes with such a cruel pen.
Fo!
I don’t want any sympathy, I want people to know the truth. I suppose the truth is cruel if you don’t want to be the gender you were born since you cannot change it no matter what you add on or take away. I guess you can’t handle the truth about Frye disregarding the law and catering to only one segment of the population. I guess the truth that the Mayor is more of an activist for glbtq issues than an advocate for the average houstonian is cruel to you. Sounds like you just can’t handle the truth. I’m sure there’s more to you than meets the eye 😉 considering your assertion that I’m somehow cruel or in search of sympathy. I don’t want to personalize it, just establish some truth. It would be helpful and establish some credibikty with the glbtq community if everytime a voice of dissent emerges that person was not maligned by the glbtq online ambassadors. But that just shows the face and the underbelly of who you really are. That’s reality, not cruelty. Just like it’s reality that you can never fully be the opposite sex of which you were born, only a hormone induced, surgically altered immitation.
And the fact that Frye is a “long-time activist” really is another point the article makes. When one wears the label “activist” it is quite easy to lose perspective on matters, even the law and the equal application of the law.
“Unfortunately I was in the process of a divorce when Phylis Frye signed my ex’s petition to be declared female and have a name change.”
Ah, so it’s personal. Hence the misgendering – referring to her as HE in capitals. Your hatred is showing.
Well there can only be one version of the truth. Born a male, always a male. Simply wishing it were different and taking hormones and adding and subtracting things does not change gender just because the tranny activists strong arm people with political correctness and get a letter stating they are another gender.
Some if you seem to have truth and hate very confused. It’s obvious who the haters are on this thread. It’s standard procedure and why there is no credibility among your ilk. You lie and then call names such as “hater” and “biggot”.
I’m neither, you know it and that is what threatens you. I’m writing a tell all book that will expose the underbelly of your movement. I’ve had a unique first hand experience with this stuff. I won’t Kay down like the other people and I speak the truth and that bothers you all because you don’t want the gravy train if hormones cut off and you want to be validated by the pyschologucal community that has so ironically chosen tk address a mental issue with plastic surgery and hormones. Without the tranny patrol doing it’s activism common sense could prevail and nobody would allow healthy people to mutilate their bodies and take hormones which cause side effects all if which ate unknown at this time, but what we do know is not really healthy. What is needed is a healthy dose of activism tk counter the tranny movement which has overrun the medical,psychological, and legal professions with their lies.
I’ve says nothing hateful. Using the correct pronoun bc I subscribe to truth, not fiction, is not hateful. Those who think so aren’t man or woman enough to be the man or woman they pretend to be. :-/
“Well there can only be one version of the truth. Born a male, always a male.”
Er… no. You’re saying something false. It’s not that simple.
“During the early 1970s, Dr. Julianne Imperato, a Cornell endocrinologist, conducted an expedition to the Dominican Republic to investigate reports of an isolated village where children appearing to be girls turned into men at puberty. In the village, these children were known as ‘guevedoces’ (literally, penis at 12 years). Also known locally as machihembras (‘first women, then man’), these pseudohermaphrodites were documented serially in the following photographs published originally in the American Journal of Medicne (Am. J. Med. 62: 170-191, 1977):
In an isolated village of the southwestern Dominican Republic, 2% of the live births were in the 1970’s, guevedoces (actually male pseudohermaphrodites). These children appeared to be girls at birth, but at puberty these ‘girls’ sprout muscles, testes, and a penis. For the rest of their lives they are men in nearly all respects (see photograph 6 below). Their underlying pathology was found to be a deficiency of the enzyme, 5-alpha Reductase.”
Changes the other way happen too, but are rarer. I was diagnosed as a mildly intersexed male in 1985, and re-diagnosed as a severely intersexed female in 2005, after the change.
I’m sorry you’re consumed with hatred. I’m sorry you’ve become the caricature of an embitted, vengeful ex- after your divorce. There are support groups that might help – you’re not alone, and you’re obviously hurting badly.
Zoe, you are citing some extra-ordinary case which is quite unlike your average transsexual. So, you are still what you are born. If a kiddo sprouts a penis at puberty then it was a male all along. There are those rare cases of mixed-genitalia but that is not what we are talking about. It’s pretty obvious Phylis Frye was born male by the current appearance.
I am hardly bitter, I get along with and coparent with my ex. So, you have no idea what you are talking about, but you are merely trying to turn tables because you are losing the argument. Just because I think others should know the truth that this is a sexual issue about addiction and not an affliction and I have a lot to share on that subject. It’s hardly as innocent as the transsexual community wants to make everyone think. You are just irritated that I am telling the truth, plain and simple.
I have plenty to say about my ex and his poor choices and how incredibly selfish his addiction made him, but I forgive him. We are still friends. But I will not remain silent about the truth. I hardly think that makes me a bitter person, but if that makes you feel good about your own bad choices that’s fine, go ahead and call me more names and mischaracterize me. It just makes you look insensitive as well as somewhat in denial.
Tracy,
It strikes me that your ex is fortunate to be free of your cruelty, free of your fiction that she is a man, and free of the fiction of your love.
Fo Fenny – please, have you no compassion? You think Tracy would have been in so much pain, if she didn’t genuinely love the facade her ex- put up? Transsexuality is such a terrible thing, not just for those of us who are direct victims, but for those around us. Spouses. Children.
Trans women can die of stress-related illness, or become permanently institutionalised, dysfunctional and bottomless pits of misery. Which hurts those they love. Or they can suicide – which hurts those they love. Or they can transition, which betrays and hurts those they love.
Not much of a choice, is there? And none of it their fault. But at least Trans women have each other. What about their spouses? What about their children? Transsexuality is the gift that keeps on giving, a congenital medical problem that doesn’t just cause untold misery to the sufferer, but those around them too, even if, *especially* if, they get the only effective treatment for it.
Yes, Tracy is hurting other innocents by her activities. I hope she seeks out support groups for other women in her situation, goodness knows there’s enough of them, she’s not alone. But how about sparing a thought for her for a change? Because your words, about cruelty, are the product of your own pain. You and I of all people should know better. She doesn’t deserve such words from us, any more than her ex- deserves some of hers.
Tracy, actually, you scream bitterness. You ex couldn’t help the way she feels and most TS’s fight it for as long as they can. Come on, you know you hate the position you are now in. And you’re putting it on the judge. Feel free to write your book / note / sort story. Perception is 99% reality.
Just watched the video. BIGOTS. Phyliss is an excellent lawyer. How her client got screwed in the death of her husband pretty made the Texas the laughing stock of people that believe it was a legal and respected marriage. Shame on the people of Texas and else that wants to injury that client. And again, Tracy, it’s the flip for you. Nothing easy about what you are going through and went through but if you feel you aren’t angry, everyone else sees it differently.