'Behold, the Power of Emerge'
Yes, but where is Emerge Oregon leading the state?
When he was 2 years old, Wyatt Maney was a healthy toddler when his mother’s boyfriend — a documented child abuser — beat him savagely in his Gresham home.
Today at age 9, Wyatt can’t feed himself, walk or talk or play like other kids. He may never be able to go to school.
The boyfriend who left him in that condition — Samuel W. Rich — was convicted in 2018 of first-degree criminal mistreatment. He is incarcerated at Warner Correctional Facility with a possible release date of 2028, when he will be 39, young enough to still have a life.
About the same time, Ezra Jerome Thomas, also 2, was severely beaten by his mother’s boyfriend, Josue Jair Mendoza-Melo in Bend. He was charged with attempted aggravated murder and first-degree criminal mistreatment. He left the boy with permanent brain injuries. Ezra needs 24/7 care and is legally blind.
The man who beat him so viciously got 12 years in prison. He is incarcerated at Snake River Correctional Institution and could be released in 2029. He would be 33 — young enough to start dating again.
Rich’s beating of Wyatt Maney received little publicity, which says something about these cases.
But then-state Rep. Daniel Bonham, R-The Dalles, brought Ezra’s case to light with a legislative bill calling for stiffer penalties when an assault victim suffers permanent severe disabilities.
The legislation has been reintroduced multiple times and hasn’t gone anywhere. In the 2021 session, the bill was not assigned a work session by House Judiciary Chair Janelle Bynum (D-Happy Valley) and thus never came up for a vote.
It came back in 2022 and, again, the legislature’s Democratic majority wasn’t interested.
Jefferson County District Attorney Steve Leriche told reporters at the time: “When you have legislators who are on one hand very much anti-incarceration and very much trying to dismantle mandatory minimum sentences, like in Measure 11, it’s hard to imagine they’ll actually get on board to support Ezra’s Law.”
Last year, Bonham — now a state senator — introduced a fourth version of Ezra’s Law (SB 430).
“For years, Democrats have voted with criminals, not victims,” Bonham told the Madras Pioneer when there was no interest. “Today, we had an opportunity to vote to strengthen our communities and provide justice for victims of crime. For reasons I can’t fathom, the majority party said no to even having a discussion.”
Could it be that the majority party is increasingly dominated by female leadership and has other priorities?
Look to Emerge Oregon, a political leadership training program for Democratic women and part of the Emerge America network. Emerge Oregon’s track record is impressive.
Among its alumnae: U.S. Rep. Val Hoyle, Multnomah County Chair Jessica Vega Pederson, Portland City Commissioner Carmen Rubio, U.S. Rep. Andrea Salinas, Multnomah County Commissioner Sharon Meieran, former Oregon House Majority Leader Jennifer Williamson and current House Majority Leader Julie Fahey, Rep. Lisa Reynolds (now a state senator) Congresswoman-elect Maxine Dexter and Congresswoman-elect Janelle Bynum, Reps. Farrah Chaichi, Annessa Hartman and Hoa Nguyen and Sen. Wlnsvey Campos, former Oregon Secretary of State Shemia Fagan.
Fagan’s downfall brought Emerge Oregon some rare negative publicity in the local media.
On Election Night at the Democratic Party’s celebration, though, it was a time to brag.
“I am here to recruit women…,” shouted CM Hall, the new incoming executive director for Emerge Oregon.
The organization is preparing women who represent “a new American majority — black, brown and Indigenous women, young women, unmarried women and queer women. …Behold the power of Emerge!” Hall declared.
“Women are the backbone of the Democratic Party. Let me say that again so our swing states can hear it — women are the backbone of the Democratic Party! … Voters trust women, Oregonians trust women. … That is why we are choosing women to lead.”
Where are they leading us?
Hall ran off a string of names and accomplishments. There were 48 Emerge women from 17 counties on the ballot in this last election. In Portland, eight Emerge women running for Portland City Council all reached their threshold to have their campaign donations matched, she said.
She gave a shoutout to “Simone Rede, the first out queer Latina (Portland City Auditor). We will elect Beach Pace as the first lesbian mayor of Hillsboro … Lyndsie Leech the first queer woman on the Eugene City Council … and Shannon Jones Isadore, the only black woman in the state legislature.”
Of that — the only black woman — Hall added, “I think we still have some work to do.”
As for her own story, Hall said she once had a dream of running for office some day.
“Where I live in Newport it was rural, and I’m queer. … I wasn’t sure if I would be accepted and elected.”
She was trained by Emerge. One of its important lessons is knowing the right time and right race.
“I am a proud member of the Newport City Council, and I have been re-elected…,” Hall said. “When women run as our authentic selves we are unstoppable.”
It seemed that her Emerge presentation on Election Night focused on gender and sexual orientation. A review of the priorities and profiles of Emerge candidates show they offer the usual progressive boilerplate on labor unions, climate justice, affordable housing, mental health, DEI (diversity, equity & inclusion) and abortion.
Annie Ellison, former executive director of Emerge Oregon, who managed Fagan’s campaign for Secretary of State, told The Oregonian that the organization’s alumnae are doing incredible things in office.
“They are making the state better for women and children and families, for people who are experiencing hunger and people who need care.”
What she didn’t say is that Democratic female legislators can be counted on to vote progressive when it comes to going easy on criminal offenders: They de-felonized meth and heroin; they allowed thieves and burglars to avoid prosecution and punishment if they had drug habits; they reduced prison sentences for violent crimes; they made it easier for offenders to obtain expungements; they sacrificed public safety to appease social justice nonprofit organizations.
What happened to the emphasis on families and children? Where does protection from crime fit in?
How is it that in April 2006, under Gov. Ted Kulongoski, the Oregon legislature passed “Jessica’s Law” requiring a 25-year mandatory minimum sentence for adults convicted of raping, sodomizing or sexually penetrating a child under 12 years of age.
But Ezra’s Law, a response to a 2-year-old boy left profoundly disabled from a beating by his mother’s boy friend, couldn’t get traction from the state’s Democratic legislators, in a state where women have wielded power.
Two female Democratic governors have controlled Oregon state politics for roughly 15 years — Gov. Tina Kotek (openly gay) and Gov. Kate Brown (reportedly bisexual). The Attorney General’s Office has been held by Ellen Rosenblum for 12 years and the Secretary of State has been held by a succession of females since 2009 (except for two years 2017-19). Oregon’s House of Representatives first reached majority-women status in 2021. Kotek served as House Speaker 2013 to 2022.
On Election Night there were boasts made to codify Roe v. Wade “to make sure everyone in our community is safe.”
It’s a fine cause, particularly if it prevents females from having babies they can’t or won’t take care of.
But codifying Roe v. Wade won’t make everyone safe. It won’t protect a child from his mother’s boyfriend, or allow the law to seek equitable justice.
Once again, Pam treads where no one else dares to go.
Women (as opposed to imitations) are different than men. Pretty simple, as any man will tell you (in private here in Oregon).
Somehow, the electorate was bamboozled with the wholly specious claim that when women got into politics--the "first ever" syndrome--things would be better. The "better" part was never specified, but then progressives aren't much for details.
So now women have assumed control of anything with real power, allied with gay men (another "cannot speak"), we are not supposed to discuss how that turned out. Especially now that the state has pandered to everyone with any claim, however specious, to being underserved, historically (unto the umpteenth generation) repressed, a victim of (fill in the blank), unhappy, triggered, bothered, or a product of their own narcissism and crappy lifestyle choices...well, how're we doing?
All of us.
Of that we cannot speak.
I was so tempted to begin by digressing because "queer" never fails to set me off. "Queer" is the verbal keffiyeh that marks the committed gender badass.
I will get back to that, but if Emerge Oregon really wants to make "the state better for women and children and families," the women politicians they field should stop thinking of criminals as victims and commit themselves to doing retributive justice instead of letting criminals evade accountability to the people of Oregon through fake "restorative" justice.
Can Emerge Oregon even hear itself? Stuff like "The organization is preparing women who represent “a new American majority — black, brown and Indigenous women, young women, unmarried women and queer women" is so 1970s feminist-bookstore lefty, not to mention downright racist. If they keep this up, they'll get markedly fewer smart, sensible white moderates like Sharon Meieran and attract radicals along the lines of Khanh Pham instead.
There's a way for Emerge Oregon to walk its talk that is so obvious it's astounding they're not already on top of it. One thing that would immediately make Oregon better for women, mothers and their daughters would be to pass a ban on the participation of males who claim to identify as female in women's-only sports. Males' natural physiological and motivational advantage over females even before puberty prevents girls and women from reaping the rewards of their training, dedication and abilities. That includes taking scholarships and other coveted resources away from girls and women. In some sports, the mass of male bodies and sports equipment in motion is a unique threat to the safety of female athletes.
Also, Emerge Oregon could help Oregon's teen girls, their mothers and loved ones with legislation to halt the harmful affirmation model of treating girls who've gotten it in their heads that they're boys. There is an international epidemic of adolescent girls showing up at gender clinics despite never having shown any signs of gender incongruity. Responding to trans activists' pressure to do away with "gatekeeping," medical and mental health professionals have abandoned the once-normal practice of evaluating a gender dysphoric youth's overall mental health, their relations with their family and friends, the presence of autism, their online history, any history of sexual assault and so on. That is a mistake that must be rectified in Oregon law.
The objective of such an assessment is to determine whether the teen girl's desire to transition is a maladaptive response to other adverse events or factors in her life. If so, therapy and other interventions are required, not chest binders, social transition, puberty suppressors, cross-sex hormones and the surgical removal and mutilation of healthy body parts.
The Canadian researcher Eliza Mondegreen has analyzed the problem this way:
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At the turn of the 21st century, girls and young women were rarely if ever seen at gender clinics. But starting in the mid-2010s, everything changed. Now female patients seeking transition outnumber male patients two-to-one across the Western world. This new patient demographic is not well understood on any level. We don’t understand the etiology of gender dysphoria in this population. We don’t yet know the efficacy and safety of transition-related interventions. And we don’t know how many of these patients may change their minds in the future and come to regret the decision to transition.
When I began my studies, I was interested in building upon the work of Lisa Littman, who identified the potential role of social influence in the development of gender dysphoria, trans identification, and the desire to transition among adolescent and young-adult females. My research focuses on the online communities where so many girls and young women have explored and adopted transgender identities in recent years. I have been particularly interested in the attitudes, beliefs, and experiences that contribute to trans identification among adolescent and young adult females. I wanted to understand what girls and young women were looking for—and finding—in the process of coming to identify as transgender. I wish to briefly summarize what I’ve learned for the consideration of the Comité.
Until recently, researchers, clinicians, and parents understood something a lot like gender dysphoria to be a normal stage of adolescent development for teenage girls. Simply put, it is hard to grow up female. It can be hard to accept the changes to one’s body—like menstruation and breast development—and the way society responds to those changes. There have always been girls and young women who sought a way out of the developmental challenges puberty posed. They took off-ramps like anorexia or cutting.
Today, trans identity is a super highway promising an escape from the discomfort of female adolescence. My research suggests that adolescent and young adult females are responding to common developmental pressures and seeking to fulfill basic developmental tasks through trans identification. This is not the same thing as being in any sense ‘born in the wrong body.’
Many of the young females I see in online trans communities are seeking an explanation for the distress they feel over their changing bodies. They often struggle with questions of identity. They may not know how to fit in with their peers. They are looking for a place to belong, a sense of direction in life, a purpose or cause to devote themselves to, and recognition for their uniqueness and for the changes they undergo as they move from childhood toward adulthood. They are also often looking for a scapegoat for difficulties in life.
The belief that one is transgender offers a clear scapegoat: the female body itself, which can be disciplined into compliance with the new identity regime, much the way the anorexic disciplines her body through starvation. A transgender identity can be especially appealing when healthier developmental pathways are blocked, for whatever reason: because the whole world locked down during a pandemic, because a young person has too few friends and opportunities in real life, or a too-compliant personality, or because mental health difficulties and neurocognitive differences interfere with her ability to build a compelling life offline. [1]
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I could go on, but I'll wrap up by suggesting that action by the Democratic majority in the Oregon Legislature, including Emerge Oregon's alumnae, could spare women's spaces in Oregon the trauma that befell the Korean-owned Olympus Spa in Seattle after its women-only policy was challenged by an aggressive and intact biological male who demanded entry on the ground that he identified as a woman. The spa is now in litigation in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, where a judge who must be drunk on progressive self-righteousness has likened the women-only policy to a whites-only rule. Oregon law needs to make it clear that women have the right to create and enjoy women-only without the presence of biological males. [2]
Would Emerge Oregon entertain such a platform? One way to find out is to put it to them in writing or, with just the right sort of gutsy individual, in person at a meeting.
Getting back to the queer thing, "queer" is problematic from the gay perspective for a number of reasons. What is it the BLM types chanted? "Call him by his name"? That's not so if you're gay, lesbian or bisexual. We're all supposed to be queers now. That's rich at a time when genderqueer people enjoy a whole bestiary's worth of labels, and heaven help you if, say, you refer to a demisexual person as genderfluid by mistake. In certain queer fringes, calling someone a "cisgendered white gay male professional" is a severe coded in-group insult.
There are other reasons many gay people don't want to be associated with the term. "Queer" is neither a sexual orientation nor a gender identity. It most certainly is not innate. At its most trivial, queer is a pose, an attitude and the latest annoying urban scene for people with pink hair and piercings - still!
At its worst, queer is doctrinaire and political, a set of learned attitudes and beliefs rooted in nihilist post-War philosophy that got a working over from trickster philosophers such as the reality denying Judith Butler beginning in the 90s and persisting to the present. Gays aren't proper queers because we have stable sexual orientations and operate in a world where there's a stable gay-straight binary. It's hard to be more out of step with queer culture than that.
Queer is no country for old gay men like me gay people of any age.
[1] Mondegreen, Eliza. Genderhacked by Eliza Mondegreen. "My testimony for Quebec's Comité des Sages sur l'identité de genre." 5 June 2024. https://substack.com/@elizamondegreen/p-142436940
[2] Rantz, Jason. MyNorthwest.com/770 KTTH Conservative Talk Radio. "Rantz: Judge claims ‘female only’ Olympus Spa is akin to ‘whites only’ business." 19 November 2024
https://mynorthwest.com/4010975/rantz-judge-claims-female-only-olympus-spa-is-akin-to-whites-only-business/