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

* Sigh * — From OneNewsNow/’s Moral debate now a public safety issue:

Citizens in Gainesville, Florida, are trying to repeal an ordinance that lets anyone reject their biological sex simply by stating that they “feel like” a member of the opposite sex. At least one citizen argues that introduces some serious safety concerns for the public.

…In fact, Davis’ group has been collecting reports of such incidents, including one in which an elderly woman using a wheelchair complained when an adult male followed her into the women’s restroom at a local grocery store.

“And the manager said, ‘He can legally do it,’” Davis relates. “The manager didn’t even ask this person if he had a sexual or gender identity issue. So just by having this law, men are walking in — and managers, because of the liability associated with questioning people who are protected by the law, they don’t even ask questions.”

The difficulty with the public safety aspect of this argument is that there have been no news stories — no documentation to support the premise — that predators have ever tried to use a public accommodation law in an attempt to cover sexually predatory behavior in a women’s restroom — despite this undocumented, factually bare anecdote given in this article.

What we’re really discussing here is a fear of predatory behavior by cross-dressed males in public restrooms vice actual, documented examples of predatory males actually engaging in any otherwise unlawful behavior in public restrooms — while at the same time being cross-dressed when they attempt to use public accommodation laws as cover for their predatory behavior.

Let’s be frank, here. If there had ever been any documented examples of cross-dressed individuals attempting to use public accommodation laws in an attempt to cover unlawful predatory behavior, I’m absolutely sure we’d have heard about it — it would be a very, very newsworthy story.

The burden of proof that this happens at all — that crossdressing males going into women’s restrooms constitute a real, documentable public safety issue in municipalities, counties, or states that have passed public accommodation laws, and that these allegedly existing predators used public accommodation laws as legal cover for their allegedly predatory behavior — should be on the conservative Christians who claim it as fact, vice falling on us transgender people and allies to prove the negative; vice falling on transgender people to prove that this scenario has never been adequately documented.

Names, dates and times, incident reports and police reports — If conservative Christians want to claim gender identity and expression specific public accommodation laws facilitate predatory behavior and constitute a real, public safety issue, they need to show us palpable evidence that indicates this really is a public safety issue. Otherwise, it’s just transgender bashing based completely on hearsay and/or fear.

~~~~~
Related:
* White Male Privilege & Women’s Fear Of Crime Intersecting With Gender Expression & Public Restrooms
* When It Comes To Transgender People & Civil Rights, It Really Is Always About The Bathroom
* The Predator Argument Doesn’t Work With Transgender Fifth Graders
* Kevin Moore’s Take On Colorado’s “Bathroom Police”
* 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
* The Non-Trans Woman Thrown Out Of A NY Women’s Restroom Sues
* Outing #2: When You Endanger A Child For The Sensationalism Of It
* Latest Attacks Of Teh HomoSEXual Agenda’s Transgenderededs’s Bullet Points

My transactivist friends and I have had some discussion about drag shows over the years, and a significant portion of these transgender folk consider drag shows as a kind of blackface. The reasoning behind that is that there is presumed to be a cissexual privilege*, and that people who have cissexual privilege aren’t fully aware of how cissexual people are often engaged in oppressing transsexual and intersexual people, much as those who experience white privilege aren’t fully aware of how white people in western society are often engaged in oppressing ethnic minorities.

I don’t personally buy into the idea that all drag shows are exercises in cissexual privilege. This is because I’m very aware that although sexual orientation and gender identity and expression are separate structural concepts, there is certain amount of spill over between the two concepts related to gender norms. There are gender norms that gay, lesbian, and bisexual people don’t conform to regarding sexual partners; there are gender norms that feminine/effeminate gay men, masculine/emasculate lesbian women, crossdressing men, genderqueer people, and transsexual people don’t conform to regarding movement, speech, and other behaviors.

And, on top of that is layered a belief among many transgender people and allies that gender is a continuum: male and female are on the end points of a spectrum of gender which includes people who understand themselves to be neither male or female, both male and female, or somewhere between male and female, as well as those who understand themselves to be male but were born female-bodied, those who understand themselves to be female but were born male bodied, and those who consider themselves to be male or female but were born with ambiguous genitalia, or were born with sex chromosomes or sex related genetics that don’t conform to the standard XX or XY dichotomy of sexes. Drag queens and drag kings often express on a personal level how LGBTQQIA (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, intersex, ally) folk are all, to some extent, gender outlaws.

Again, I personally just don’t buy into the idea that within the LGBT community, drag performances are exercises in cissexual privilege — or excercises in a kind of transgender blackface — instead I believe our community’s diversity is often beautifully expressed in drag shows. I strongly believe in the embracing and owning of community expressions of gender variance.

So when would, in my opinion, a drag show become like a blackface show?

Well, I don’t know in every case; I can’t tell you exactly all of the elements of when drag performance crosses the line to become an exercise in cissexual privilege. I can; however, give you an example from this past week of a drag show which, in my opinion, was such an exercise.

On June 12, 2008 there was a drag show/benefit for seniors organized by Westchester County legislator Bernice Spreckman. It took place at the Polish Center in Yonkers. There, county legislators Ken Jenkins (in a bra, tutu and something looking like butterfly wings), Vito Pinto (in a blonde wig black bra with white fur, furry miniskirt), and Jose Alvarado (in a bra and a Roman Helmet) appeared to the laughter of an audience of seniors. Per the Lower Hudson Journal News:

Already under siege by gadflys who would abolish their jobs and a district attorney investigating alleged misspending among their staff, Westchester County legislators found another constituency to provoke yesterday: transgenders, who rallied outside county offices today to protest a drag show starring three male legislators the day before.

Dressed in boas, skirts, lace, falsies and twinkling lights, the legislators staged “You Gotta Have a Gimmick” from the Broadway legend “Gypsy” as part of a musical review before about 400 senior citizens at the Polish Community Center in Yonkers.

…Jenkins added that the performance was honest to “Gypsy” as it was written, which he said - incorrectly - featured “cross-dressing men” as female strippers in “You Gotta Have a Gimmick.”

The number traditionally includes only women.

In a quote from a New York Transgender Rights Organization [NYTRO] press release, spokesperson Joann Prinzivalli stated:

“The Westchester County legislature has failed for nearly eight years to amend the county human rights law to explicitly protect transgender people … It is shocking to see county legislators who have dragged their feet on this vital issue doing the equivalent of a KKK blackface show to mock my people.”

[Below the fold, some comparisons between how African-Americans were portrayed in relevant news media and popular entertainment in the Jim Crow south and transgender people are portrayed by conservative Christian news media — as well as in this recent drag show.]

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In a 5-4 decision today, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that Guantanamo Bay detainees have the right to habeas corpus challenges of their detention. The New York Times reported:

The ruling on Thursday focused in large part on the centuries old writ of habeas corpus (“you have the body,” in Latin), a means by which prisoners can challenge their incarceration. Noting that the Constitution provides for suspension of the writ only in times of rebellion or invasion, Justice Kennedy called it “an indispensable mechanism for monitoring the separation of powers.”

In the years-long debate over the treatment of detainees, some critics of administration policy have asserted that those held at Guantánamo have fewer rights than people accused of crimes under American civilian and military law and that they are trapped in a sort of legal limbo.

Justice Kennedy wrote that the cases involving the detainees “lack any precise historical parallel. They involve individuals detained by executive order for the duration of a conflict that, if measure from September 11, 2001, to the present, is already among the longest wars in American history.”

The Los Angeles Times reports in their article Supreme Court again says Guantanamo prisoners should have rights:

About 270 prisoners are now being held at Guantanamo. A small number of them, perhaps as many as 40, are likely to face trial. But today’s decision concerned only detention, not the rules for trial.

With a 5-4 decision, one gets dissenting opinions. Again from the Los Angeles Times:

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Last Thursday, Colorado Governor Bill Ritter signed Senate Bill 200 — the Colorado public accommodation law.

The bill bans discrimination based on a person’s religious belief or sexual orientation - including transgender people - in places of public accommodation, housing practices, family planning services and 20 other public spheres. Such prohibitions are already in place with regard to race.

“I think it’s a step in the right direction for Coloradans and civil rights,” said Sen. Jennifer Veiga, a Denver Democrat who sponsored the bill.

Ritter signed Senate Bill 200 [Thursday] afternoon in his office, without any of the public ceremonies and news releases that came with six other bills he signed today. His spokesman, Evan Dreyer, said the governor was not deliberately trying to keep the signing quiet. In all, Ritter signed 20 bills today, Dreyer said.

Should I be worried about conservative Christian’s expectation of a barrage of cross-dressed, male predators stalking girls and women within the gym lockers and public restrooms in Colorado? I know from archiving news there just aren’t that many stories about cross dressed predators, let alone one’s that use women’s public restrooms and women’s gym locker rooms to do so — but if you’re James Dobson, you worry a lot about predators, bisexuals, pervy crossdressers and homosexual or heterosexual males that might walk in and relieve himself in women’s and girls’ presences:

“Who would have believed that the Colorado state Legislature and its governor would have made it fully legal for men to enter and use women’s restrooms and locker-room facilities without notice or explanation?

“Henceforth, every woman and little girl will have to fear that a predator, bisexual, cross-dresser or even a homosexual or heterosexual male might walk in and relieve himself in their presence. The legislation lists every conceivable type of organization to which this law applies, including restaurants, bathhouses, massage parlors, mortuaries, theaters and ‘public facilities of any kind.’ Those who would attempt to protect females from this intrusion are subject to a fine of up to $5,000 and up to one year behind bars.

“This is your government in action. It represents a payback to Tim Gill and two other billionaires who have essentially ‘bought’ the state Legislature with enormous campaign contributions. Coloradans deserve better!

“And by the way, because of the way this bill is written, it is not subject to the initiative process. There is no recourse.”

Be afraid. Be very afraid:

Of course, the alternative forcing people to segregate their bathroom usage strictly by chromosomes, genitalia, or whether there’s an F or an M on your original birth certificate is that female-to-male (FTM) trans people will be using women’s restroom.

Meet my FTM friend Ethan St. Pierre…

Would Dr. Dobson & Company prefer him to use the women’s restroom now? I’m sure most conservative Christian women would feel very comfortable sharing a public restroom with Ethan…

I believe Dr. Dobson & Company would rather gay, lesbian, and bisexual people — as well as people of transsexual history or transgender experience — would just never-ever-ever pee in a public restrooms at any time whatsoever. The assumption appears to be we’re all just predators waiting to assault women and girls in restrooms and gym locker rooms.

So if Dr. Dobson were king, LGBT people in Colorado Dobsonland would likely all be required to start wearing Depend Diapers. Y’know, so when we left our apartments and homes so we never set foot in a public restroom. Oh — that’s assuming that any Dobsonland businesses would sell LGBT people goods or services — or heck! Even rent apartments to us, or sell us property!

* sigh *

~~~~~
Related:
* According To CitizenLink/Focus On The Family, There’s “A New Type Of Predator” — Men In Dresses

A round up of interesting news — well, at least it’s news I find interesting.

* Now here’s a quality protest event! Bay Area College Republicans Revolt — over beer tax proposal…

A group of Bay Area College Republicans took to the streets of San Jose Friday evening to protest a subject near and dear to them - beer.

More to the point, they wanted to rant about a state lawmaker’s proposed tax on beer manufacturers that would add nearly $2 to the price of a six-pack as a way to help the state plug its giant budget deficit.

…At the afternoon protest outside the office of Assemblyman Jim Beall, D-San Jose, about 50 students stood at a busy downtown intersection waving signs that read “Students Opposed to Unjust Taxation!” and “No Taxe$” as one student on a bullhorn chanted “No taxation on intoxication!”

That’s keeping priorities in perspective.

* The Los Angeles Times is reporting that Obama is picking up support and calories.

Waffles for breakfast and cheesesteaks for lunch, it’s all about eating as Barack Obama chows down to show his regular-guy credentials on the campaign trail.

PHILADELPHIA — The presidential candidate known for his eloquence on the stump was savoring a huge cheesesteak here when he looked up at the battery of photographers surrounding his table and reported: “I’m working through this sucker pretty good.”

Not the most poetic line from Barack Obama, but it captured the campaign’s central activity in the walk-up to this week’s Pennsylvania primary: Eating…

* From the San Francisco Chronicle: Anti-war Cindy Sheehan files to take on Pelosi. She’s made good on her threat to run against Pelosi if Pelosi didn’t start impeachment proceedings against President Bush.

Peace activist Cindy Sheehan wants to snatch House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s congressional seat from her in November, but first she’s going to need the help - and signatures - of 10,198 friends and supporters.

Sheehan was at San Francisco City Hall on Friday to take out papers for her independent run for Congress, but without those signatures from voters in the district, her name won’t show up on the ballot.

“It’s an uphill battle,” said Sheehan, who vowed to run against Pelosi in July after the speaker refused to start impeachment proceedings against President George Bush. “But I’m excited about the signature-gathering process. It’s going to be an opportunity to talk to people about our campaign.”

* From the New York Times‘ Soldier Sues Army, Saying His Atheism Led to Threats:

When Specialist Jeremy Hall held a meeting last July for atheists and freethinkers at Camp Speicher in Iraq, he was excited, he said, to see an officer attending.

But minutes into the talk, the officer, Maj. Freddy J. Welborn, began to berate Specialist Hall and another soldier about atheism, Specialist Hall wrote in a sworn statement. “People like you are not holding up the Constitution and are going against what the founding fathers, who were Christians, wanted for America!” Major Welborn said, according to the statement.

Major Welborn told the soldiers he might bar them from re-enlistment and bring charges against them, according to the statement.

Last month, Specialist Hall and the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, an advocacy group, filed suit in federal court in Kansas, alleging that Specialist Hall’s right to be free from state endorsement of religion under the First Amendment had been violated and that he had faced retaliation for his views. In November, he was sent home early from Iraq because of threats from fellow soldiers.

As we’ve seen this past week regarding protests against Day Of Silence participation, free speech and freedom of religion are often perceived by conservative Christians as only applying to them, — not to those who don’t share their views.

[After the fold, The Peter wants an FMA for civil unions too; a shark attack off a San Diego County beach; plagiarism in the pulpit; and penis thievery.]

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Here’s a two item This And That on military issues.

* Gays And Lesbians: No; Sex Offenders & Other Felons: Yes

Okay, we’re in an unpopular war in Iraq. America needs soldiers to fight the war, but a draft is politically unfeasible. So, the Army lowers its standards in an attempt to get enough soldiers to fulfill its missions in Iraq and Afghanistan.

So, who is the Army “hiring” with their lower standards? Well, per the Michael D. Palm Center press release:

New information released today by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee shows that in 2006 and 2007 Americans who were convicted of serious crimes including sexual offences, manslaughter, “terrorist threats including bomb threats”, burglary, kidnapping or abduction, aggravated assault and sexual assault were allowed into the military under moral waivers granted by the services.

According to the data given to the committee by the Department of Defense, the Army allowed the most waivers in 2006 and 2007. During this period, moral or felony waivers were given to 3 soldiers who had been convicted of manslaughter. One soldier was allowed in following a kidnapping or abduction conviction, 11 were convicted of arson, 142 convicted of burglary, 3 who were convicted of indecent acts or liberties with a child, 7 who were convicted of rape, sexual assault, criminal sexual assault, incest or other sex crimes and 3 who were convicted of terrorist threats including bomb threats.

…Last week, the USA Today reported that use of moral waivers has increased again. The total percentage of Army recruits admitted by moral waiver more than doubled from 4.6% in fiscal 2004 to 11% in fiscal 2007. It has so far edged to 13% in fiscal 2008.

The Servicemembers Legal Defense Network (SLDN) has a some great commentary up on this story in press release entitled Military Continues Recruiting Serious Ex-Felons While Discharging Qualified Gay Service Members.

~~
H/t: Christopher Neff of Outright Vermont.

[After the fold, servicemembers and their families can’t sue military doctors for malpractice.]

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Who would ever have thought gender identity disorder would be a rampant in Kuwait. (I didn’t think they even had a chapter of Transexual Menace there.) From the Kuwait Times today …

He [Dr. Khalid al-Mohanadi] also pointed to a growing problem related to gender identity disorder that has developed from being merely a social problem to a rampant phenomenon, quoting a relevant recent study he made for the National Assembly.

Gender identity disorder cases ought to be treated through religious, psychological and social perspectives, he said.

Concerning Satan worshippers, al-Mohanadi said they underwent “intellectual invasion” that resulted from spiritual, psychological and religious vacuum.

But, he reassured that those youths return to reasoning once they are put under appropriate religious and psychological guidance.

Sounds like Dr. al-Mohanadi owns the local Kuwaiti NARTH franchise. Nice touch — being lumped in there with the satan lovers, by the way.

~~~~~

My sister wears a mustache,
My brother wears a dress.
Goodness Gracious, that’s why I’m a mess!

– “Gee, Officer Krupke”

Per the Miami Herald article Goat abuse sparks outcry…

The case of a goat who was raped and killed has prompted a push for a bill that would outlaw bestiality in Florida.

Perhaps surprisingly to many, up until this point in time it’s been legal to have sex with barnyard (and other) animals in Florida.

Rich said she was as shocked as she was disgusted when she learned of the rape and asphyxiation last year of a family pet goat named Meg — who was pregnant with twins — in the town of Mossy Head in rural Walton County.

A suspect in the case, a 48-year-old man, is serving an 11-month, 29-day jail sentence on animal-theft charges in connection with the attempted abduction of another goat in a separate case, according to Walton County Assistant State Attorney James Parker.

Parker said he couldn’t prosecute the suspect in the death of Meg because DNA samples taken with a sheriff’s office rape kit were inconclusive.

Parker said he asked the Florida Department of Law Enforcement last week to retest the evidence.

But even if there’s a DNA match, Parker said the suspect could only be charged with misdemeanor trespassing and animal cruelty, a third-degree felony punishable by up to five years in prison.

Parker said the suspect could not be arrested for bestiality because it isn’t a crime. The prosecutor added that the man is ”definitely a suspect” because he was arrested trying to take another person’s goat Feb. 3 shortly after Meg was choked to death from her collar that had been tightly held around her neck.

There are tee shirts, apparently.

One shirt depicts a goat saying “Baaa Means No!”

From the Miami Herald’s blogs comes this:

Sunrise Sen. Nan Rich’s proposal to make it a crime to have sex with animals (yes, it’s legal in Florida) finally got a hearing and a swift unanimous vote in the Senate Criminal Justice committee. Rich, a child’s rights advocate, said that those who abuse animals (sexually and otherwise) are likely to do the same to kids.

The bill was precipitated by the sex assault-related strangulation of a goat in Mossy Head, but other terrible tales have now surfaced.

Before the vote, Leon County prosecutor Michael Bauer sent Rich and other senators a letter recounting his troubles prosecuting the 2006 case of a blind guy who had sex with his male yellow Lab “Lucky.” The man explained “freely about his regular sexual activities with his dog and said he would take the dog for a walk prior to sex to ‘prevent fecal impact.’

Uh…yeah.

So far, the bill has yet to be heard in the Florida House. We can only hope there’s no clandestine reason why any similar bill hasn’t been heard in the Florida House as yet.

So marriage equality was voted against in Florida a few years back before the legislature has even considered getting around to banning sex with barnyard animals and dogs like “Lucky.” There’s got to be some irony to be found in Florida’s priorities, since one of the many arguments by conservative Christians against marriage of gays and lesbians has been that it would lead to the slippery slope of men marrying their pets.

This week seems to be a week of finding out how I am, or have been involved with entities that don’t support transgender people/gender identity and expression protections. Earlier this week, it was on how I have a cell phone with Verizon, a company whose Board of Directors doesn’t support explicit gender identity and expression language in it’s employee non-discrimination policy.

Today, it’s a new law against gender-variant expression in Kuwait, and how the law is enforced.

I’ve said it here a few times already, but let me say again I’m a transgender Persian Gulf War veteran. I personally didn’t see any combat action (as the ground war ended two months before I was sent to serve on the USS Gary), but I was assigned to the gulf during the window to be awarded the Southwest Asian Service Medal (with Bronze Star), National Defense Service Medal, and most importantly for this discussion, the Kuwait Liberation Medal.

Well, Pierre Tristam of About.com wrote the article this week entitled Curtsey to Theocrats: Kuwait Bans Transvestites. A couple of article excerpts:

There goes Kuwait again, repressing in the dubious name of religion. Earlier this month I noted Kuwait’s fetish for bans–on women performers, on women holding jobs after 8 p.m., on movies it doesn’t like, even on valentine’s Day commemorations. Now comes its latest ban: on transvestites. This one is a bit more brutal than a ban. It entails imprisonment and humiliation, too.

[Kuwaiti police verbally abusing and striking transgender people, as well as shaving their heads, after the fold.]
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The Los Angeles Times has two articles up of note on bullying this past week. The first is entitled Meaner bullying is leading schools to find new tactics. I’m not going to quote from it, but it’s well worth the read.

The second is entitled A deadly clash of emotions before Oxnard shooting. That article is a particularly hard read — it turned my stomach. So if get-wrenching stories upset you, this is your warning to stop reading here. From the article:

For teens living in a shelter for abused and neglected children, school can provide a daily dose of normalcy, a place to fit in, a chance to be just another kid.

It didn’t turn out that way for Lawrence King.

According to the few students who befriended him, Larry, 15 years old and openly gay, found no refuge from his tormentors at E.O. Green Junior High School.

Not in the classroom, the quad, the cafeteria. Not from the day he enrolled at the Oxnard school until the moment he was shot to death in a computer lab, just after Larry’s usual morning van ride from the shelter a town away.

…The anti-gay taunts and slurs that Larry endured from his male peers apparently had been constant, as routine for him as math lessons and recess bells. The stinging words were isolating. As grieving friend Melissa Reza, 15, put it, Larry lived much of his life “toward the side. . . . He was always toward the side.”

She and others recall that the name-calling began long before he told his small circle of confidants that he was gay, before problems at home made him a ward of the court, and before he summoned the courage to further assert his sexual orientation by wearing makeup and girl’s boots with his school uniform.

His friends say the verbal cruelty persisted for months, and grew worse after the slightly built Larry pushed back by “flirting” with some of his mockers. One of them was Brandon, who seethed over it, the friends say.

Brandon has been charged as an adult with premeditated murder and a hate crime, and he is being held in juvenile hall.

[More on Lawrence’s life after the fold]

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Y’know, in Texas, Mishell Blomenkamp wouldn’t have had a problem getting married to a woman because that state considers her sex to be “fixed by our Creator at birth.” In Missouri (the Show Me state); however, Mishell might have to lift her skirt for the court to prove she still has male genitalia:

Two Missouri women said their marriage isn’t illegal because one of the women is physically a man.

Mishell Blomenkamp used to be Michael Blomenkamp. She had her name changed, but she said she never had gender reassignment surgery.

When she applied for a marriage certificate, she said she was a man. According to the state of Missouri, that is perjury.

“I live as a female because that’s what I am in my head,” Blomenkamp told KMBC’s Chris Nagus. “Biologically I’m still a male.”

Blomenkamp married Anita Frazier. Blomenkamp said that because she’s still technically a male, she never thought that applying for a marriage license in Carroll County would be a problem.

At first, it wasn’t.

“They issued it, and we went and got married,” Blomenkamp said.

But the honeymoon was short-lived. Blomenkamp was arrested and charged with perjury, which is a felony.

[Checking under the skirt soon for male genitalia? More after the fold.]

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~~Article 2 of 2 on transgender outing today~~

I got a call tonight from Shannon Garcia of TransYouth Family Advocates (TYFA) last night. She described a 9News report from Douglas County, Colorado, saying there is enough information being put out in this article and accompanying video to out the transgender child for ridicule and violence.

The news station apparently wasn’t interested in talking to anyone with expertise on transgender children to get the child’s perspective out in their on air broadcast. The accompanying print article refers comments from Kim Pearson, the TYFA Executive Director, but these weren’t included in their on air comments.

The Rocky Mountain News is doing an article on this story soon, but they at least are getting a perspective other than the worried parent in the same classroom.

The article’s headline read Boy wants to return to school as a girl. Some gems from the text:

- “I see this as being a very difficult situation to explain to my daughter to explain why someone would not want to be the gender they were born with,” said Dave M.

His daughter will be in the same class as the student.

- “I do think that there’s going to be an acknowledgement that ‘Why are you in a dress this year when you were in pants last year?’” said Dave M.

- That thought is not comforting to Dave M., who believes his daughter is not ready to think about the issue of being transgender.

“I don’t think a 3rd grader does have the rationale to decide this life-altering choice,” said Dave M.

- [Dave M.] is also unhappy with the way the school is handling this. The district has been preparing for the child’s return to this school for months. Dave M. thinks other parents should have been made aware of this sooner.

“I just find it ironic that they can dictate the dress style of children to make sure they don’t wear inappropriate clothing, but they have no controls in place for someone wearing transgender clothing,” said Dave M.

Yes, let’s force everyone to conform.

For an idea of how irresponsible the press is in releasing this to public in this sensationalized way, let’s remember that the child we are talking about is in third grade. This be emotionally disastrous for this child due to the media attention. Has anyone looked at LGBT youth suicide rates lately?

And, it could have been dangerous with for this transgender third grader even without the media coverage. Let’s not forget about what the Christian Civic League encouraged in Maine. In their online publishing arm — The Record — they commended a grandfather for encouraging his grandchild to protest an m2f transgender classmate. From that commendation:

Mr. Melanson told his grandson to use the girls’ bathroom whenever he saw the other ten-year-old boy using it. Melanson reasons that the same anti-discrimination laws that are likely to be used to justify one boy’s use of the girls’ bathroom may also be used to justify his grandson’s use of the same bathroom.

His reasoning is sound. Nevertheless, he has been told by school administrators, and the local police, that his grandson cannot use the girls’ bathroom. The administration persists is allowing only one boy to use the girls’ bathroom at the Asa Adams Elementary School.

And who can forget that NARTH’s Canadian psychiatrist Joseph Berger advocated, on NARTH’s website, for the ridiculing of gender variant children:

In a blog on NARTH’s website, Berger expressed disgust with a Northern California school that accommodated a cross-dressing kindergartner and other children with “gender-variant” behaviors. Berger said that instead of teaching tolerance, schools should “let the other children ridicule” boys and girls who don’t conform.

“It is a mistake for various interfering, ignorant and biased busybodies to try to ‘counsel’ the other children into accepting the abnormal,” Berger wrote. “It is very healthy to be able to draw the line between what is healthy and what is sick.”

So, with our third grader, we see religious right organizations have advocated protesting transgender elementary school kids, as well as ridiculing them. Well, I feel Christ’s love there, don’t you?

For those of us with LGBT families, do any of us think that outing an LGBT elementary school child in the media is responsible? Would you have wanted to be outed by the television news, even if they didn’t mention your name?

My best wishes are for the continued health and well being of this child, especially after this kind of press coverage.

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Note: I talked to Kim Pearson of TYFA on the phone Thrusday night, and she told me that GLAAD is going to take on News9 for their article and news story. That’s good news to my ears, that’s for sure.

~~Article 1 of two on transgender outing today~~ 

From Australia’s GenQ, the article Transgender woman bashed because of police breach:

Garrick Jacobson was unaware his girlfriend had a sex change, until the police told him he was “sleeping with a guy”, a court heard yesterday.

“The officers were, like, paying me out,” Jacobson recalled in a subsequent police interview.

“Just laughing their heads off, (saying) she’s a bloke. You’ve been sleeping with a guy, ha ha ha.”

The revelation pushed him “over the edge”, Downing Centre Local Court heard, and just hours later he assaulted his then girlfriend Brigitte Fell at her inner Sydney home.

Jacobson, 26, gave evidence at a hearing for Constables Tyrone Stacey and Brendan Ritson, who are accused of breaching privacy laws over the incident on September 24, 2006.

…”I felt deceived … because the female I’d been with was a male, had a sex change,” [Jacobson] said.

It was in 1993 when police outed Brandon Teena to the Falls City Journal he was first raped, and then he was killed.

Brandon Teena, whose birth name was Teena Brandon, was originally from Lincoln, Nebraska, and moved to nearby Humboldt in 1993, shortly after beginning to live full-time as a man in preparation for eventual sex-change surgery. Brandon passed easily as a man in Humboldt, but was discovered to be biologically and legally female by local police following his arrest on a misdemeanor check forgery charge two weeks prior to his slaying.

Police publicly released this information to the local newspaper, the Falls City Journal. One week later, on Christmas Day 1993, Brandon was raped and assaulted at a Christmas party by two men, whom he identified to local police as Nissen and Lotter, despite the fact that they had threatened to kill him if he reported the incident to the police.

…According to Tammy Brandon, Sheriff Laux responded to her inquiry by telling her that “he didn’t need [her] to be doing his work.” Laux has also been quoted as saying “you can call it ‘it’ as far as I’m concerned” when describing Teena.

…Local authorities have denied that their outing of Brandon Teena in any way contributed to his killers’ motives…

You would think that police training across the western world would emphasize that outing people can, and does result in violence. Obviously, the two officers involved in outing Brigitte Fell either never watched, or never learned lessons about appropriate police behavior from the film Boys Don’t Cry.

Greg Miller, a Los Angeles Times staff writer, wrote today:

The White House said Wednesday that the widely condemned interrogation technique known as waterboarding is legal and that President Bush could authorize the CIA to resume using the simulated-drowning method under extraordinary circumstances.

The surprise assertion from the Bush administration reopened a debate that many in Washington had considered closed. Two laws passed by Congress in recent years — as well as a Supreme Court ruling on the treatment of detainees — were widely interpreted to have banned the CIA’s use of the extreme interrogation method.

But in remarks that were greeted with disbelief by some members of Congress and human rights groups, White House spokesman Tony Fratto said that waterboarding was a legal technique that could be employed again “under certain circumstances.”

Fratto said the nation’s top intelligence officials “didn’t rule anything out” during congressional testimony Tuesday on CIA interrogation methods, and he indicated that Bush might consider reauthorizing waterboarding or other harsh techniques in extreme cases, such as when there is “belief that an attack might be imminent.”

When I write about the importance of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and trans issues for this coming election, it doesn’t mean I don’t care about other issues. This is a big one for me.

I want a Democrat in the oval office after the next election if for no other reason than with a Democrat, there is a better chance that those who authorized this kind of barbarism will be held accountable.

I spent 20 years in the U.S. Navy (9/1980 - 9/2000) to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States.” Who knew that with the first presidential administration that took office after I retired from the U.S. Navy would engage in obvious torture of prisoners, and then claim it was legal … constitutional. I didn’t serve my country to “support and defend” torture as constitutional.