Uh Oh! East Cleveland’s Mayor, Eric Brewer, has a photo scandal on his hands. Some photos of him (or someone extremely similar looking) in drag have surfaced and been distributed around the city. Brewer has gone on record attacking the city’s Police Department for disseminating the lewd pictures.
Par for the course, the media outlets are having a field day with this one. Unfortunately for Brewer, the pictures are scandalous and even legally indecent.
Thanks to Anita for sending in this link.
From what I’ve read, Eric Brewer has neither confirmed nor denied that the pictures in question. In my opinion, that looks an awful lot like him. Hmmm, I wonder if he goes by Erica? Anyway, here’s how I feel about this.
On the one hand, it sucks that he is going to be judged for his crossdressing. In all likelihood, the manly men of East Cleveland are going to turn against him for this, which is wrong. However, it’s terrible that the photos leaked are of him in various sexual poses. I haven’t linked to these shots, but they can be found via a quick google search if you are interested.
This teaches us an extremely valuable lesson, be careful with your pictures. Supposedly, these pictures were stolen from his PC when he took it in for repair. It’s one thing to be free and open with appropriate pictures of yourself en femme but it’s quite another when you take sexual or erotic pictures. If those pictures are ever taken from you, it’s going to be quite difficult to live it down.
If the pictures were of Eric Brewer dressed as a appropriately well-behaved woman, then this would be easier to handle. They are not, and as such further propagate the stereotype of the sexually deviant, attention-craving horny man who gets a thrill from wearing women’s clothing.
[UPDATE: Saturday Sept 26th, 2009]
I watched a Cleveland news station’s report on this and they said that the local sentiment was that whatever a person does behind closed doors is his or her business. I think that is a great attitude for the community to have — basically, they care more about what Eric Brewer can do for the community than what kind of underwear he uses. Bravo to the citizens of East Cleveland!
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{ 14 comments… read them below or add one }
Jessica, I think if he looses his job, he could give makeup and transformation services!
I think he needs a hand for a great job, not his day one though.
There has never been any lewd pic’s of ellen to worry about.. . people should be smarter.
Ellen
Indeed he could
!
I also feel that he should have been smarter with his photos. If he’s got lewd ones, then that’s his business but he should have gone to the trouble of securing them.
> the manly men of East Cleveland are going to turn against him
I wonder if the manly ones who dress up will also follow the herd?
If the photos were stolen then I feel sorry for the guy. If they were very personal and nothing illegal was going on, is it any of the public’s business? I suppose that’s the risk you run with any type of fame.
Wouldn’t that be amazing, like a march of men dressed in drag to show solidarity.
Yes, it’s very unfortunate that his pictures were swiped by a supposed friend when he gave his PC over to be fixed. Now the public has a hold of them and in the age of internet, no amount of deletion can fully eradicate them.
Re: Update
That is the way it should be. In response to Lynn’s comment- it is LIKELY that a lot of East Cleveland’s finest closet CD’s have influenced the general sentiment. With an estimate of up to 20% of men having some level of cross dressing behavior, if just half of them quietly calmed their closest friends, you could easily end up with the general consesus. Comments on this?
Ellen
I was definitely comforted by hearing the news of the community’s acceptance. You’re right, many of them are probably closeted CDs anyway, or at the very least know of one.
Wow the 2 persons in the photo do look very similar. What if he just happens to have a cousin that has a very similar look? hahaha. Ok unlikely.
I’m loving the girl’s dressing style though. She can totally turn it out
Hahaha — his cousin! I’m sure that’s his alibi too
lol
She looks good as Erica, though, huh?
Yes, taking sexually explicit photos of yourself in women’s clothing may not be the best choice. However, shouldn’t one be able to take their broken PC into a repair shop without someone stealing the photos off of it? Even if the mayor had burned the sexy photos onto a CD or DVD instead of the hard drive, the pictures can still be on the hard drive. Any geek worth his pay can steal them off. Most people don’t know about secure erase, but probably should. But it still should not absolve the person from stealing the photos in the first place.
That’s my $ 0.02 worth.
Tracy Schapes
Thanks for bringing up that point, Tracy. The jerk that stole these photos and disseminated them should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law and perhaps have his or her name and face on the front page of the paper.
Even the most innocuous photos can make a difference when someone wants to target you, especially with transgendered folks being the newest target of the religious right. If you do put your photos onto a CD or flashdrive, a program called CCleaner can help make sure the deleted files on your hard drive are really deleted. It’s a free program, and has several levels of shredding security (up to 27 passes!). Worth a look!
Great blog, by the way!
Thanks for the suggestion, Jessica and thank you for the lovely compliment.
As excited I am about the fact that no one cares that he crossdresses, I also think that given the current state of the City of East Cleveland, a crossdressing mayor is the last thing they should be worried about.
Yea, turns out he lost the primary, I can’t help but think that these pictures had something to do with it