03/26/2007
After Hearings, Largo, Fla Says Steve Stanton to Remain Fired
Six hours of hearings were held on Friday night over whether or not the Largo City Commission should affirm its decision to fire City Manager Steve Stanton, who found his 14-year job as City Manager jeopardized after disclosing that he was undergoing a sex change operation.
Stanton and his team testified before the Commission for two hours. Stanton himself spoke for 30 minutes, saying "I'm asking you to realize I'm still the same person today that I was four weeks ago. I'm asking you to judge me on my qualifications and performance and the fact that this organization is the best-run organization in Pinellas County."
Neither Stanton's testimony or that of approximately 100 others who came to testify could save Stanton's job. The commission voted to uphold their (5-2) decision to fire him.
It was evident that the circumstances surrounding Stanton's firing had generated a groundswell of emotion, the St. Petersburg Times reports: "Shortly before 10 p.m., the meeting was briefly stopped for a bomb scare; his assistant city manager, Henry Schubert, was treated by paramedics after he blacked out; and across City Hall, dozens of the nearly 300 people in attendance wore light pink T-shirts that proclaimed 'Don't Discriminate.' They were distributed by Equality Florida, a statewide advocacy group for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people."
The T-shirts had a particular resonance. At hearings earlier in the month Equality Florida director Nadine Smith was arrested and brually manhandled for distributing flyers that said "Don't Discriminate" on them.
A city commissioner later defended the decision to fire Stanton: "Largo City Commissioner Gay Gentry said City Manager Steve Stanton was a 'hard-nosed, my-way-or-the-highway' boss who expected more understanding of his personal situation than he showed to some of his roughly 1,200 employees in 14 years as the city's top official. 'Suddenly the rules were changing and he was asking to be dealt with in a different way than he was dealing with people,' Gentry said."
Stanton remained upbeat, even after the final decision had been handed down: "I'm on cloud nine. It went super. It went great. This is not about Steve keeping his job exclusively. It was about supplying information and education about something that people just don't understand."
Largo's Transgender City Manager Is Fired [st. petersburg times]
Largo Commissioner Defends Vote To Fire Transsexual City Manager [ap]
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Posted 11:29 AM EST by Andy Towle in Discrimination, Florida, News, Transgender | Permalink
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IMAGINE if the state he lived in had a Gov who would speak out against this discrimination. IMAGINE if the country had a President who would speak out against this discrimination.
IMAGINE if Americans had not elected two brothers to these positions who choose to sit quietly and allow this to happen with not a single word of comdemnation.
THE BUSH FAMILY STRIKES AGAIN
Posted by: rjp3 | Mar 26, 2007 11:41:06 AM
I find it really interesting that the gay movement includes so much solidarity with transgendered people. Not to invalidate the discrimination that they face, but I've never really felt a connection to battles over transgendered identity the way I do over fights about homosexuality. They seem like two completely different things to me.
I completely sympathize with transgendered people, but I just wonder where the solidarity between homosexuals and transgendereds comes from. Maybe it's a generational thing (I'm 25), but I don't see that many fundamental similarities in the experiences of gay people and transgendered people.
Posted by: Rottin' in Denmark | Mar 26, 2007 11:42:59 AM
Here's another perspective. I have friends who worked for Stanton and they report that he was the worst boss ever, especially if you were gay and out, as they were. They both left their jobs after seeing straight employees promoted time and again, only to be denied promotions themselves. Yes, you could argue that their performance was bad, but they're reports, and others in the state, say that Stanton was cruel and discriminatory in his practices, and only after he decided to "out" himself did he reverse his pattern of discrimination. As the city council said, he didn't make an issue of it until it directly affected him.
Posted by: Wayne | Mar 26, 2007 11:58:58 AM
A city commissioner later defended the decision to fire Stanton: "Largo City Commissioner Gay Gentry said City Manager Steve Stanton was a 'hard-nosed, my-way-or-the-highway' boss who expected more understanding of his personal situation than he showed to some of his roughly 1,200 employees in 14 years as the city's top official. 'Suddenly the rules were changing and he was asking to be dealt with in a different way than he was dealing with people,' Gentry said."
you know when i first read this i was outraged. because i felt that it didnt matter what he was like as a person it doesnt justify the city to discriminate agianst him.
this rings of the truth that two wrongs don't make a right. I still feel that this is true. It is unfortunate that he was such a bastard in office, but that doesn't mean that he should writen off for it. Now i know that im not the most knowing person on this issue but that is how it struck me when i read it.
Posted by: Nick | Mar 26, 2007 12:08:15 PM
I dont know why transgendered issues wouldnt be included in "the gay movement". Its all about sexual identity afterall. If anything, transgendered people have it harder, imo. Its one thing to realize that you like boys when you're little..its entirely another to look down and realize you have the wrong body parts.
Posted by: Kit | Mar 26, 2007 12:09:18 PM
What I dont get..If he was such a bastard and a horrible boss..Then why wasnt he fired sometime in the 14 years he's has the job, and not just after he decided to cut off his willy?
Posted by: Kit | Mar 26, 2007 12:10:48 PM
It is unfortuante that the City Commission did not investigate and reprimand or possibly fire Stanton for being a bad boss. Instead, they have taken the cowards' way out and used discrimination against a transgendered person to remove a difficult and possibly non-performing employee.
By condoning Stanton's behaviour toward city employees for all those years and then firing him for an unrelated reason they would be setting themselves up for a discrimination suit but for the absence of non-discrimination laws for transgendered people. There are numerous legal "wrongs" in this situation, including the lack of legal redress.
Posted by: rudy | Mar 26, 2007 12:19:18 PM
I just wonder where the solidarity between homosexuals and transgendereds comes from. Maybe it's a generational thing (I'm 25), but I don't see that many fundamental similarities in the experiences of gay people and transgendered people.
Hey KIDDO --- the GENDER issue is part of the movement because the first people to stand up and fight were often the ones who
could not hide because of obvious non-conforming gender behavior or dress.
The Drag Queens, The Transvestites, Transgenderism is a newer issue in human experience - the operations have only been around about a 1/2 decade. But it makes sense to include it.
RAW *RELIGIOUS* BIGOTRY is the issue.
My understanding is that a number of people in the town and on the council are evangelicals. Forget cocksucking - they consider EFFEMINATE behavior to be a sin against god. So dont swish - and you better damn not cut off your cock to become a WOMAN! A sin against god.
(They quote one quote - who knows if translated correctly - line in the bible to support their hatred.)
This guy had a GREAT work record. There is nothing negative about his ability to work. They came up with the "loss of confidence" as a some bullshit excuse to fire him based on religious beliefs. PERIOD.
THIS IS AMERICA in 2007.
This is all to keep the straight and the masculine, and the self-rightous in power. Period.
Write the Gov of Florida - I hear he is the least bigoted of the family - given his Mom "brown granbabies" and all.
Posted by: rjp3 | Mar 26, 2007 12:26:46 PM
sorry - OF course the operations have been around a 1/2 CENTURY! ;)
Posted by: rjp3 | Mar 26, 2007 12:29:10 PM
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christine_Jorgensen
I guess they have been going on since the 1930's!
With the lovely Christine Jorgensen being the first celebrity transgendered person in the 1950's. "FROM G.I. TO BLOND BOMBSHELL!"
Posted by: rjp3 | Mar 26, 2007 12:33:33 PM
Direct from the woman's mouth to answer rottindenmark's questions ...
Why the solidarity with the transgendered in the gay movement (which is still part of the not often used anymore term "sexual revolution") ...
Christine Jorgensen said in 1989, the year of her death, "I gave the sexual revolution a good swift kick in the pants."
She died of cancer at age 62.
Posted by: RJP3 | Mar 26, 2007 12:40:28 PM
Regardless of what kind of boss he was, the proof that his firing was based entirely on his gender identity is that not only had they renewed his contract EACH YEAR for the past 14 years [17 if you count the three years he was Assistant City Manager] but they also, save for one person, approved a nearly 10% raise six months ago. [Even one of their fellow commissioners called them on that contradiction.] Who was the one commissioner against it? A rabid homophobic religious nut who introduced the resolution to fire him once his gender identity was exposed by a local paper. He was going to reveal it to everyone when school was out and his 13-yr. old son would be out of town to escape the controversy. More on these details, included the history of non-discrimination legislation in Largo as well as an interview with Nadine Smith about being assaulted by 4 cops, can be found in a piece by Chip Arndt at http://www.freedomdems.org/oped.html
It's about the third piece down.
Finally, pop history has overstated the role of drags in the movement, and specifically Stonewall. And it's better stated to say that the common denominator between homophobia and transphobia is "gender role expectations." In their eyes, Fem OR butch, men are not supposed to be romantically and sexually attracted to other men nor alter their physical gender to fit the gender with which they identify. While the same is true regarding lesbians and FTM transgenders, there is less hostility to them because of sexism. In other words, the heteronormatives can better understand what they think [mistakenly] is an effort to be like the "superior" male.
Posted by: Leland | Mar 26, 2007 12:58:24 PM
But isn't it true that long before there was a gay civil rights movement there was a gay sub-culture--especially in certain sections of large cities. Usually, a night culture of bars, cabarets, etc. The dominant (most noticeable)members of this gay subculture were those that broke gender role rules of behavior: queens, drag queens, butch lesbians. There were exceptions; people such as Walt Whitman, Harry Hay, Frank Kameney, Bayard Rustin: men who presented a traditional masculinity that broke the stereotypes. But effeminate or feminine males stood out for centuries, of course.
The resentment and dislike for "stereotypical queens" by traditionally masculine (and those who think they are) homosexual men has always been around. It's another form of misogyny, I guess...oooops, did I just write something controversial. But it's an issue that made me re-assess friendships, and re-evaluate the tolerance level and level of bigotry within the gay world. I was asked a few years ago, "Aren't you proud to be gay?" I didn't answer. I'm less impressed with "gay" than I was thirty years ago.
Posted by: Derrick from PHilly | Mar 26, 2007 1:23:52 PM
He was fired because he is transgender.
That's all you need to know.
Posted by: Jack! | Mar 26, 2007 2:11:36 PM
As a gay man, I just don't include TV and TG as legitimately part of gay, lesbian and bisexual matrix. It just got tacked-on by "sexual" activists for convenience. And as a business owner, I would probably take a negative-view of an employee who suddenly announces he's "transgendering". Having personally known-socially several MTF transgendered persons, one overlying trait seems to be a broad streak of duplicity that as an employer I would have to wonder what-else has been going-on behind my back.
Posted by: Ted B. (Charging Rhino) | Mar 26, 2007 2:42:10 PM
Thanks, everyone, for weighing in on this. I hope I didn't come across as 'Kick the bums out!' I'm just curious as to how we all got lumped in together.
It must have been entertaining to see the religious types come up with reasons why transgendered people are somehow 'immoral', and watch the biblical cherry-picking ensue. Other than the whole 'your body is a temple' line, I can't see how anyone could object to transgendered-ness on religious grounds.
And Ted B., come on. That's a lame, anecdotal reason to make employee policy from. I'm sure you'd be the first to thank employers who say "I know three uh them homosexuals, and they's all LIARS." You'd think our people would be less susceptible to that kind of thinking.
I think the decision to change your gender, like the decision to change your hair color, affects no one else whatsoever, is therefore outside of the realm of morality, and has no remote basis for discrimination.
Posted by: Rottin' in Denmark | Mar 26, 2007 3:44:12 PM
If duplicity were enough to cause you to fire an employee, Ted, you most likely would have pretty high turnover. Duplicity is not unique to any one group of people.
You're illustrating the prejudice against transgenders nicely though.
Posted by: mark m | Mar 26, 2007 4:59:01 PM
I dont get it peopl cant help who they are attracted to but wrong body parts what exactly does being male/female feel like. Im sorry makes no sense. IF your a guy you like girls or guys thats your buisness does not mean anthing it depens what type of people you like you can be feminie masculine likewise with lesbians but transgender 'Im in the wrong body" r u serious i don get it and they better not cpmppare it to civil rights.
Posted by: sasha | Mar 26, 2007 7:50:36 PM
"Land of the free; home of the brave" my ass. This is outright bigotry, and nothing can be done about it - except to mobilize a grassroots effort to oust the five city commissioners who voted to fire Stanton. But that's not exactly reliable...
Ugh.
Posted by: Jordan | Mar 27, 2007 1:08:51 AM
Ted Ted Ted - shame on you - it is not nice to be a bigot.
As a gay man having the T in the LGBT movement has required that address my own fears and bigotted reactions.
Masculine gay men fear association with fem gay men. Masculine gay men fear being feathered with the transgender issue.
The similar thing is BIGOTRY - being gay and being transgender are as different as black and white, but why should we all not fight for acceptance - or is just the acceptance of man on man sex good enough for you Ted ?
Screw the untrustworthy transgendered right ? Shame.
Posted by: RJP3 | Mar 27, 2007 12:17:21 PM
Regardless of whether transgender people should or should not be part of a GLBT movement, the law against employment discrimination should be upheld for all of our sakes. If you want to learn more about how the law protects Steve Stanton, see my blog on workplace diversity. Most people don't know the difference between GLB and T and don't care. We're all "fags" to them. That's a good reason to stick together - our struggles are related.
Posted by: Dr. Jillian T. Weiss | Mar 31, 2007 11:56:15 AM
Many transgenders are individuals who can't accept being homosexual because they internalized the outmoded shame society placed on being gay. Their discomfort is not actually with their genitalia but with their identity. Internally, they at war with themselves, while mistaking the cause to be external features. But times have changed, and being gay is not the big deal it used to be. People have learned to stop fighting instinct and just enjoy themselves. In fact, gays today are often the life of the party, and not least because their joy comes from self-acceptance, which is essential for loving and being loved. It does not come from dressing in drag over a neutered anatomy, as the high number of suicides among disappointed transexuals should warn.
"To thine own self be true."
Posted by: Caleb | Aug 6, 2007 11:52:28 AM