But … they’re just the grubby, dirty (18%) pot calling the scorched, nuked kettle black.

I may be an ol’ yellow dog (from New York City), but I sure as heck don’t feel comfortable voting for them come this November.

(Though I probably will end up doing so. I’m no McCain fan … for starters, I remember this business.)

Forget single issues (trans rights, for instance, especially when folks don’t deliver) — I don’t see these ass clowns doing anything to address and fix my concerns about where my life, or likely where your life and those of most fellow citizens are going.

Obama, please, I expect we’ll see more improvement in his golf game like his buddy, Franklin Raines (shame, shame) …

He has shaved eight points off his golf handicap, taken a corner office in Steve Case’s D.C. conglomeration of finance, entertainment and health-care companies and more recently, taken calls from Barack Obama’s presidential campaign seeking his advice on mortgage and housing policy matters.

… than anything substantive. Steve Case? Dot-com bubble. Harold Raines? Housing-bubble. Barack Obama? Name that bubble.

Here we go: What I’ve been reading online today, paired with an open thread to discuss these articles, or stuff you find interesting.

- Marriage rights celebration, ‘D-List’ celeb among celebration’s highlights. Excerpt:

After 34 years of celebrating diversity and rights for the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) community in San Diego, the local organization Pride San Diego is reaping the rewards of activism and education.

Comment: I’m volunteering at the Transgender/TASC booth on Saturday, and the Scouting For All booth on Sunday.

The Scouting For All booth is extremely important to me. I have an Eagle Scout son, and I two other sons in scouting. If it were known that my two sons who are still in the Boy Scouts had a transgender parent, in accordance with how the Boy Scouts Of America’s national policy is applied, my sons would be kicked out of scouting. For me, protesting against the Boy Scouts has a lot to do with them discriminating against youth because of how their parents identify their sexuality or gender identity.

- DiversityInc: Jena 6 Aftermath: Nooses Punishable By Prison. Excerpt:

Nine months after the nation began witnessing an uptick in the number of reported noose sightings following the furor over the Jena 6 incident in Louisiana, lawmakers there, as well as in Connecticut and New York, have made hanging a noose a crime punishable by imprisonment. And more states are likely to follow.

Since September of last year, the number of reported noose incidents nationally jumped to nearly 80, according to the DiversityInc Noose Watch, the first and only tracker of national reported noose sightings.

- San Francisco Chronicle: 24% of state high-schoolers likely to drop out. Excerpt:

Nearly 1 in 4 California students will drop out during high school, state educators said Wednesday, basing their prediction on what they said is the most accurate information about student attendance they’ve ever collected.

Using a new student-tracking system, state educators found that 127,292 high school students in ninth through 12th grade quit school during the 2006-07 school year. That means 24 percent of incoming freshmen won’t stay in school long enough to graduate, researchers said, assuming that pace remains steady.

…The new dropout rate is far higher than the 13 percent educators had earlier estimated using less-sophisticated counting methods they had relied on for years.

Comment: I wonder what the graduation and dropout rates are for LGBT youth — I did a quick look this morning, and couldn’t find any statistics on the subject. I’m sure they’re out there, but I’m not sure where to look for the stats.

- MSNBC: Gore pitches 10-year shift to clean energy; Former VP praises Obama, McCain on climate issue, sees huge opportunity. Excerpt:

Just as John F. Kennedy set his sights on the moon, Al Gore is challenging the nation to produce every kilowatt of electricity through wind, sun and other climate-friendly energy sources within 10 years, an audacious goal he hopes the next president will embrace.

- Bay Windows: A novel defense: Convict’s bid for retrial hinges on alleged anti-trans discrimination against potential juror. Excerpt:

At first glance the murder trial of Roxbury gang member Sam Smith, known as “Fat Sam” according to press reports, seems to have little to do with transgender civil rights. In June 2001 a jury convicted Smith of first-degree murder for shooting and killing a member of a rival gang in Roxbury’s Ramsey Park in 1991. But Smith and his attorney, David Mirsky, are hoping that the U.S. Supreme Court will force the state to grant Smith a retrial on the grounds that one of the prosecutors in the case allegedly dismissed a juror because the juror appeared to be transgender.

- Los Angeles Times: Blue Shield sued for allegedly lying about its coverage; L.A. city attorney’s suit contends Blue Shield of California has illegally rescinded the coverage of more than 850 policyholders since 2002.

Comment: * sigh *

- The Lesbian & Gay Foundation (UK): Open meeting held for gay community and local police. Excerpt:

On Monday July 28, the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community will have an opportunity to meet representatives from Merseyside Police and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) to discuss homophobia and hate crime.

The meeting, organised by the Police, the CPS, Terrence Higgins Trust, Wirral LGBT forum and Trans Wirral will be held from 6.30 -8.30pm at The Lauries Centre in Birkenhead.

The open meeting, ‘Merseyside Police and Hate Crime response’ allows members of the LGBT community to meet directly with representatives of Merseyside Police and the CPS to address concerns around homophobic and transphobic incidents and other safety concerns. Homophobic incidents and attacks are often under reported and this meeting will provide a forum for open and honest dialogue.

Comment: I hope this clears some air, but my guess is that bad feelings from the incident that precipitated this meeting are going to linger for awhile.

This story may not be specifically trans-related, but this quote …

Now, said Daniel G. Fish, a noted elder law attorney, “‘She looked so young’ is no defense.’’

… did remind me a bit of some of the absurd and indecent “deception” arguments trotted out in “trans panic” defenses over the years.

As someone who cares for a parent who’s not many years younger than Rose Morat (and as someone who grew up and spent almost half their life in NYC), I’m pleased that Gov. Paterson and the New York State legislature did the decent thing passing this legislation.

(And maybe sometime soon the New York State Senate will do another decent act … and pass the Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act.)

It may be a dog’s life for some of us, but …

If we lose California, if they defeat the marriage amendment, I’m afraid that the culture war is over and Christians have lost. I’ve never said that publicly until now — but that’s just the reality of the fact.

If the homosexuals are able to defeat the marriage amendment defining marriage as between a man and a woman, then the culture war is over and we’ve lost — and gradually, secularism will replace Christianity as the foundation of our society.

–Don Wildmon, President of the American Family Association, quoted on OneNewsNow

I’m sure he’s using hyperbole to make his point, but still — I think that his statement says a lot. It would be very wonderful to defeat Prop 8 — seeing it as a win for the LGBT community and marriage equality.

I hate to say though that if Prop 8 fails to pass, I will probably be just as happy to know that conservative Christians will consider this a Culture War movement defining loss for them.

Go Equality For All! Go California!

~~~~~
Related:
* Pam’s House Blend: Equality For All
* Pam’s House Blend tag: Marriage Equality

Last month the City Council and mayor of Hamtramck, Michigan voted to expand that city’s antidiscrimination protections to include discrimination based on one’s sexual orientation or gender identity or expression.

When such protections have been enacted in other places in the country, such as Montgomery County, Maryland, it’s much too often the case that opponents are firm and unyielding in their opposition.

But, not in Hamtramck, where Ypsilanti resident Jay McNally has displayed such a generous grasp of the meaning and spirit of compromise to the locals , according to today’s Detroit Free Press [emphasis added] …

To Randy Groseclose, an antidiscrimination ordinance passed last month by the Hamtramck City Council sets a dangerous precedent.

“There’s concern about what impact an ordinance like this would have on traditional family values,” the 31-year-old married resident said, noting, “I definitely don’t support any kind of discrimination.”

To others, including Mayor Karen Majewski, the ordinance is a sign of compassionate governance. “The intention … is simply to recognize and ensure basic human rights, basic equality of treatment under the law for every resident of Hamtramck.”

The ordinance prohibits discrimination in housing, employment and city contracting against a wide range of groups, but its inclusion of protections covering sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression has put the city at the center of an ideological battle.

In addition to local interest, outside groups such as the American Family Association of Michigan and the Triangle Foundation have taken a strong interest in the debate.

Groseclose was one of several people who collected signatures for a petition that could allow residents to vote on the ordinance. The group needed 417 signatures from registered voters and collected close to 600. City Clerk Ed Norris said he expects to finish the certification process by Monday. If the group collected enough valid signatures, the City Council would be able to repeal the ordinance or put it on a ballot.

Sean Kosofsky, spokesman for Triangle Foundation in Detroit, said the fight in Hamtramck is the latest skirmish between those who support gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender rights and those who oppose them. He cited fights over similar ordinances in Ann Arbor, Ferndale, Ypsilanti and other Michigan cities.

He said opponents’ claims that the ordinance would target groups such as the Boy Scouts, Salvation Army and others because of their stances on gay rights are lies. “They’re going to try to pit neighbor against neighbor,” he said.

But Jay McNally, a former Michigan Catholic editor from Ypsilanti, disagreed.

McNally, who considers himself a member of the American Family Association, said council members likely did not understand “the disastrous implications of what the Triangle Foundation has in mind.”

Still, he offered what he considered to be a compromise: McNally said he could support the ordinance without references to sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression, points Majewski said were “nonnegotiable.”

Rights ordinance stirs debate

It looks like this sort of thing is spreading (more on that here) … and though we’re on the subject of cracks, I’m going to resist making one about the “flinty” police chief’s last name …

Police chief says no to crack

A US town’s new police chief has banned low hung trousers that expose wearers’ bums.

Police Chief David R Dicks, of Flint, Michigan, says his officers will arrest people who wear their pants too low.

“This immoral self expression goes beyond free speech,” he said in a statement. “It rises to the crime of indecent exposure.”

Some Flint residents are backing Police Chief Dicks, reports the Flint Journal newspaper.

“It’s overdue,” said Sam Berry, 73, of Flint. And Gwendolyn Allen, 72, agreed: “It’s so disgusting… It’s disgraceful.”

But others disagree. Claude Carter, 49, said wearing pants low was a fad - not a crime.

“I see young and old wearing their pants that way,” said Mr Carter. “It doesn’t annoy me.”

Greg Gibbs, a local attorney, says how people wear their clothing is a form of expression - but warns that not all of those forms are protected by the constitution.

“The issue is: Does it violate the First Amendment?” said Gibbs, adding that he plans to research the issue further.

I guess the Coppertone Girl won’t be welcome in Flint either.

By the way, it’s worth recalling that the Delcambre (La.) ordinance stated “It shall be unlawful for any person in any public place or in view of the public to be found … in dress not becoming to his or her sex … ” Just remember to use good fashion sense (we don’t need no “tranny messes” around here) so as to not offend fashionistas like Mayor Carol Broussard …

The clause about “dress not becoming to his or her sex” doesn’t forbid cross-dressing, Broussard said. “A dress, I wouldn’t find that obscene. As long as he covers himself and it’s not too short.”

When it comes to gay owned and/or operated brick and mortar businesses discriminating against transgender people, one just has to look at gay bars as having examples of the worst offenders.

Take Colorado’s Denver Wrangler. They are so brazen in their discrimination against transgender people that they’ve posted their discriminatory policy on their website:

- Gender matching I.D. required.
- I.D. must be state issued photo identification or driver license, military I.D., US passport or visa.
- I.D. must be current (not expired).

Which class of people do you imagine has identification cards where the sex marker doesn’t match the gender presentation? If you guessed transgender people — the same transgender people who are protected against public accommodation discrimination in Colorado’s new public accommodation anti-discrimination law — you guessed correctly.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that if the Wrangler’s policies were challenged by a complaint to the Denver Anti-Discrimination Office by even one potential transgender patron, the city’s ARTICLE IV (that covers public accommodation) indicates the bar is blatantly violating the law with an unlawful policy — I’m sure one potential transgender patron’s complaint would result in the city suing Wrangler’s. (And geez, that’s not even basing a complaint on the new state public accommodation law, of which Wrangler’s is also in violation of!)

Although…I guess I could ask my rocket scientist friend Zoe Brain to get a her opinion on whether or not unlawful discrimination is occurring. I’m not sure a rocket scientist’s opinion would add anything to the discussion, but I guess it couldn’t hurt to know what a rocket scientist thinks about this.

Wrapping this diary up, let me point out that Pam’s House Blend is going to Denver in late August for the Democratic National Convention. Whatever shall I do should the bar’s discriminatory policy be still in place when PHB makes the trip to the Mile High City? I’m sure my rocket scientist friend could provide y’all with some good guesses about some lawful behaviors I may engage in at the Denver Wrangler’s location.

~~~~~
Related:
* Q Of The Day: When Is It Okay For Gay Owned Businesses To Discriminate Against Transgender People?
* Pam’s House Blend tag for employment - housing - public accommodation
* I’m Going To Colorado In August With PHB; I’m Going To Make Use Of Public Accommodations
* If Dr. Dobson Were King, We’d All Be Wearing Depends
* When It Comes To Transgender People & Civil Rights, It Really Is Always About The Bathroom

A portent perhaps foreshadowing what’s likely to befall Republicans come November?

Whatever it may or may not be, I completely and unremorsefully agree with the blogger who said “I am not sad.” At least (I don’t think), he did not have the additional misfortune to be represented by Sen. Helms for over 25 years, as I was.

From the New York Times …

Jesse Helms, the former North Carolina Senator whose courtly manner and mossy drawl barely masked a hard-edged conservatism that opposed civil rights, gay rights, foreign aid and modern art, died early Friday. He was 86.

…

David A. Keene, chairman of the American Conservative Union, said recently that Mr. Helms’s contribution to the conservative movement was “incredibly important.”

For one thing, he said, Mr. Helms was alert to technological change, especially the importance of direct mail, and readily signed fund-raising letters that helped conservative organizations get started.

Mr. Helms was also instrumental in keeping Mr. Reagan’s presidential campaign alive in 1976 when it was broke and limping after a series of defeats in the Republican primaries.

…

In campaigns and in the Senate, Mr. Helms stood out in both his words and his tactics.

He fought bitterly against Federal aid for AIDS research and treatment, saying the disease resulted from “unnatural” and “disgusting” homosexual behavior.

“Nothing positive happened to Sodom and Gomorrah,” he said, “and nothing positive is likely to happen to America if our people succumb to the drumbeats of support for the homosexual lifestyle.”

In his last year in the Senate, he decided to support AIDS measures in Africa, where heterosexual transmission of the disease is most common.

Trailing in a tough re-election fight in 1990 against a black opponent, Harvey Gantt, the former mayor of Charlotte, Mr. Helms unveiled a nakedly racial campaign ad in which a pair of hands belonging to a white job-seeker crumpled a rejection slip as an announcer explained that the job had been given to an unqualified member of a minority. Mr. Helms went on to victory.

In 1994, angered at President Clinton, Mr. Helms suggested in print that if Mr. Clinton was to visit North Carolina, “He’d better bring a bodyguard.” He later said the remark had been “a mistake.”

His bruising style and right-wing politics won him many friends in his home state and across the nation, but he also created a legion of enemies. Millions of dollars were raised outside North Carolina both from those who flocked to his ideological banner and from those who ached to see him defeated. He never won more than 55 percent of the vote in five campaigns for the Senate.

The rest of “Jesse Helms, Conservative Force in the Senate, Dies at 86″ may be read here.

Since we tend to focus on transgender-related issues here a bit, I’ll end with this brief excerpt from a 1994 San Francisco Human Rights Commission report authored by Jamison Green that popped out of the “wayback machine” …

Gender dysphoria was once classified as a
medical condition, and Federal funds were available for diagnosed people who did not
have insurance coverage, who may have been on the verge of suicide because they
could not function in the social role prescribed by their external genitalia. But the Nixon
administration removed this safety net, and that cleared the way for insurance
companies to decide that they didn’t have to pay for any treatment deemed cosmetic,
elective, or experimental in nature. And in 1992, Senator Jesse Helms was successful in
removing protection for transgendered people from the Americans With Disabilities Act.
Gender dysphoria is now classified as a psycho-sexual disorder. Thus, Federal funding
is no longer available for gender confirmation surgery, but it is still readily available for
electroshock and other barbaric treatments, if deemed psychiatrically necessary.

A photo of Autumn at the recent Congresssional hearing on “An Examination of Discrimination Against Transgender Americans in the Workplace”…

… which appeared on HRC Back Story blog (”A round-up of transgender reactions to the first congressional hearing on gender identity“) yesterday.

Autumn, at the the left in the picture, is seen chatting with HRC Business Council members Diego Sanchez and Meghan Stabler. Hearing witness Sabrina Marcus Taraboletti and NCTE Executive Director Mara Keisling are in the background.

Well, I’ve never seen this before. A group of trans-identified folk fundraising for a major party presidential candidate perceived to be a transgender friendly candidate.

Well, I wasn’t planning on giving to any presidential campaign this year, but I donated in response to this letter. It’s knowing that the few dollars I donated are going to be bundled with other transgender people’s donations, and identified as coming from a group of folk who identify as I do.

Frankly, it’s becoming more and more important to me that transgender people are politically visible. For the future, transgender people’s civil rights and protections will likely depend a great deal on how well we present ourselves as human beings — and as valuable constituents — to our lawmakers.

I intend to continue to stay pretty damn visible. My peers apparently feel pretty similarly.

In the colloquial spirit of saying someone is a sandwich short of a picnic to mean someone isn’t reasoning quite clearly, WingNutDaily’s Janet Folger appears to be a toilet stall short of a public restroom in her piece Go ahead: Arrest me.

Before we get to what she states she soon plans on doing, we need to get a take on how she reads a section of Colorado’s recently signed-by-the-Colorado-governor public accommodation law (SB 200). From the actual text of the law:

SECTION 8. 24-34-701, Colorado Revised Statutes, is amended to read:

24-34-701. Publishing of discriminative matter forbidden. No person, being the owner, lessee, proprietor, manager, superintendent, agent, or employee of any place of public accommodation, resort, or amusement, directly or indirectly, by himself or herself or through another person shall publish, issue, circulate, send, distribute, give away, or display in any way, manner, or shape or by any means or method, except as provided in this section, any communication, paper, poster, folder, manuscript, book, pamphlet, writing, print, letter, notice, or advertisement of any kind, nature, or description which THAT is intended or calculated to discriminate or actually discriminates against any disability, race, creed, color, sex, SEXUAL ORIENTATION, marital status, national origin, or ancestry or against any of the members thereof in the matter of furnishing or neglecting or refusing to furnish to them or any one of them any lodging, housing, schooling, or tuition or any accommodation, right, privilege, advantage, or convenience offered to or enjoyed by the general public or which states that any of the accommodations, rights, privileges, advantages, or conveniences of any such place of public accommodation, resort, or amusement shall or will be refused, withheld from, or denied to any person or class of persons on account of disability, race, creed, color, sex, SEXUAL ORIENTATION, marital status, national origin, or ancestry or that the patronage, custom, presence, frequenting, dwelling, staying, or lodging at such place by any person or class of persons belonging to or purporting to be of any particular disability, race, creed, color, sex, SEXUAL ORIENTATION, marital status, national origin, or ancestry is unwelcome or objectionable or not acceptable, desired, or solicited.

How Folger quoted this same section of the new law in her recent article:

Section 8. 24-34-701. Publishing of discriminative matter forbidden. No person, being the owner, lessee, proprietor, manager, superintendent, agent, or employee of any place of public accommodation … shall publish, issue, circulate, send, distribute, give away, or display in any way, manner, or shape or by any means or method, except as provided in this section, any communication, paper, poster, folder, manuscript, book, pamphlet, writing, print, letter, notice, or advertisement of any kind, nature, or description that is intended or calculated to discriminate or actually discriminates against … SEXUAL ORIENTATION, marital status … in the matter of furnishing or neglecting or refusing to furnish to them or any one of them any lodging, housing, schooling, or tuition or any accommodation, right [marriage], privilege [adoption] , advantage, or convenience … on account of … SEXUAL ORIENTATION, marital status … [which] is unwelcome or objectionable or not acceptable, desired, or solicited.

I’m not an attorney, but it looks to me that the intent of the section of the law in question is to make it clear that the owner, lessee, proprietor, manager, superintendent, agent, or employee of any place of public accommodation, resort, or amusement shouldn’t attempt to violate or circumvent the intent of Colorado Revised Statute 24-34-301 with some sort of written product. (Y’all attorneys out there in Blenderville correct me if I’ve got this totally wrong, okay?) Janet Folder seems to have edited the code section to imply SB 200 states that if any written product disagrees with the homosexual agenda and is found within the state boundaries of Colorado, that’s unlawful — and that any person who publishes or possesses such material is in violation of state law.

And, she pretty much states that this is her interpretation of the statute in this article excerpt:

Read the rest of this entry »

One of the things I noticed about the An Examination of Discrimination Against Transgender Americans in the Workplace hearing is that minus the Alliance Defense Fund, there weren’t any conservative Christian organizations speaking at the hearing; minus the Traditional Values Coalition any conservative Christian organizations leaving press materials at the hearing; and minus the ranking minority member of the subcommittee (Rep. John Kline, R-MN) there were no Republicans there to ask questions of the witnesses at the hearing.

So what’s happening now there’s a conservative Christian community characterization of the hearing as if there was serious wave of opposition speaking to trans employment issues — but they didn’t actually have much presense there opposing any future gender idenity and expression inclusive legislation in person.

Some examples of online, conservative Christian commentary:

- PFOX: Congressional Hearing To Push Gender Confusion Upon All Americans

Democrat leaders in the U.S. House of Representatives have scheduled a hearing this Thursday on discrimination against “transgendered” individuals in the workplace.

“Homosexuals and their transgender activist allies hope to use this hearing as a way of forcing the imposition of gender confusion upon all Americans,” said Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays & Gays (PFOX) Executive Director Regina Griggs today. “Instead of treating transsexualism and cross-dressing behaviors as Gender Identity Disorders (GID) as defined by the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Democrats seem determined to make these behaviors into federally-protected minorities.”

“Why should Congress force Americans to provide workplace accommodations for people who are confused about whether they’re male or female? How can Congress force us to make believe that a man is really a woman or a woman is really a man?”

“If Democrats were truly concerned about these gender confused individuals, they’d push for expanded mental health services for GID. A person can’t change his or her sex – and many of these individuals think they’re a woman one day and a man the next day. Why is Congress catering to such insanity?”

[OneNewsNow/American Family Association, Peter LaBarbera, Focus On The Family/CitizenLink, Concerned Women For America, and Traditional Values Coalition commentaries below the fold.]
Read the rest of this entry »

… to Rep. Linda Sanchez (Cal.) and Rep. Phil Hare (Ill.) for their comments today during their subcommittee’s hearing on “Discrimination Against Transgender Americans in the Workplace.”

Ms. Sanchez quoted Dr. King …

Morality cannot be legislated, but behavior can be regulated. Judicial decrees may not change the heart, but they can restrain the heartless.

Mr. Hare spoke of “a moral obligation” to transgender persons facing workplace discrimination and that there is a simple solution (in response to “opposition” witness, Glen Lavy) — just legislate … now … whatever the judicial system does later.

1:45 PM EDT

The last few minutes were highlighted for me by Sabrina Tarabolleti’s disclosure that she’s been fired (again) from a job patching potholes by the Florida Dept. of Transportation … and by Rep. Andrews’ closing remarks about “progress is glacial … and it can be even slower than that … ” and his comments about the need to help the forgotten or neglected, who have few votes and little money or power.

We’ll be posting as much news and commentary as we can at Transgender News on the hearing today.