News and views for Tuesday, November 11th …

[TN, USA] “The shooting death of a transgendered woman won’t stop a planned lawsuit over her February beating at the hands of police, one of her attorneys said Monday. Duanna Johnson, 43, was shot in the head at Hollywood and Staten in North Memphis late Sunday. She died at the scene. Although the Memphis Police Department identified the victim as Dwayne Johnson, attorney Murray Wells said the victim was the person he knew as Duanna.” — Transgendered abuse victim found dead

[TN, USA] The video from CW30 Eyewitness News’ report (“Duanna Johnson’s Death Will Not Stop MPD Lawsuit“) last night …

[Australia] “At the Grauniad, where noted Transphobe Julie Bindel was nominated for an award as “Journalist of the Year” by UK GLB(but not T) group STONEWALL. Named after a riot against police oppression of trans* and gays started by a Transgendered woman, to add a touch of Irony … So why does all this matter? Surely it’s just more silly sophomoric political games, people shouting at each other in the battle of the -isms, with no-one but they interested in the outcome? It matters because of this – the events I wrote about in Nothing Unusual … It matters because just as the beating of Duanna Johnson was not widely publicised in MSM, her murder will go unremarked either, even if a ballistics exam shows (purely by coincidence) a police-issue weapon was involved. It matters because if the Julie Bindels of the world are allowed to preach their poisonous Xenophobia without being called on it, then consequences such as this are inescapable.” — Today’s Battle

[USA] “New reality series Sex Change Hospital (WE tv Tuesdays, 11 pm/ET) follows patients — from retired grandfathers to construction workers, businessman and office managers — as they undergo surgery to transition from one gender to another. We caught up with Dr. Marci Bowers (formerly Mark Bowers), who has performed over 550 male-to-female sexual reassignment surgeries, to find out more about the life-changing operations at her clinic in Trinidad, Colo., the compelling docudrama and the social stigmas involved with transgender patients.” — Transgender Doctor Talks Sex Change Hospital

[CA, USA] The Stanford Law School has honored transgender attorney Shannon Minter, legal director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR), with its National Public Service Award. — Stanford Law School Honors Public Interest Attorneys Shannon Price Minter and Julia R. Wilson with Public Service Awards

[USA] (Too bad certain Americans for Truth never focused on WMDs as they have on MWDs.) The latest from “Porno Pete” LaBarbera: “What will a President Obama do to protect the right to privacy of female federal workers who don’t want men wearing dresses – with male genitalia – sharing their women’s restroom?” LaBarbera said. “Will a President Obama request funds from Congress to embark on an ambitious ‘Transgender Restroom Construction Project’ to build special “trans” bathrooms in government buildings – so as not to subject female employees to sexual harassment and violations of their privacy?” — Will Federal Female Employees Be Safe from Cross-Dressing Men Using Ladies’ Restrooms in the Obama Administration?

[MD, USA] “So — a foreign guy went into the ladies fitting room with his wife and baby. That’s the story.
The letter writer, Bunny Galladora, hints that this is supposed to have something to do with our county’s new nondiscrimination law. The guy wasn’t dressed as a woman or claiming to be transgender, he was speaking a foreign language and maybe comes from a less puritanical country than ours, where men help their wives pick out clothes and watch the kid. As long as he isn’t leering at the women, exposing himself, or molesting anyone, there is no law — and never has been a law — against him being there … The WCTU lady says she was uneasy saying something to the store employee “with the new law having been passed.” Was she afraid somehow that she was going to accidentally discriminate against someone on the basis of gender identity? If there was something unusual about the man’s gender identity you would think she’d mention it. Let’s see how quickly Channel Seven gets this “challenge to the new law” on the air. And to think, they don’t like it when we call them “nuts.”" — WCTU Leader Outraged by Foreigner at Kohls, Blames New Law

[USA] “We need to start rebuilding for a fully inclusive ENDA. Start making strong alliances, start reaching out, start laying the bare strategic groundwork for the next battle a year or so from now. Let the lawyers continue to fight to overturn Prop 8, it was in some respects a red herring primarily designed to build and test a religion-based political machine, but it did serve (hopefully) as a fertile source of lessons learned and an insight as to how we need to fight the upcoming fight for our rights.” — Forward Thinking

[USA] “This statement and its supporting literature, that hypothesize sexual deviance as a cause of transsexualism, have sparked dissent among clinicians and researchers and outrage within the transgender and transsexual community [4-8] While theories around “autogynephilia” seem exceptionally impervious to contrary evidence, the controversy has raised questions about tolerance and bias in American Psychiatry– at what point do bad stereotypes preclude good science? The term “autogynephilia,” meaning “love of oneself as a woman,” was first introduced by Dr. Raymond Blanchard of the Clarke Institute of Psychiatry, now known as the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto. He is currently chairman of the Paraphilias Subcommittee for the upcoming DSM-V. Blanchard stated that, “All gender dysphoric males who are not sexually oriented toward men are instead sexually oriented toward the thought or image of themselves as women.” [9] The absolutism in this statement, in the words “all and “instead,” seems astonishing. [10] It reduces a broad continuum of sexuality among transwomen to two narrow maligning stereotypes: either “homosexual males” in denial of a “homosexual” identity or pathological narcissistic “males” sexually attracted to themselves.” — Autogynephilia: The Infallible Derogatory Hypothesis, Part 1

[USA] “The gender alternative to ENDA would still be far from perfect. Even the most inclusive version of ENDA proposed so far was startling in its embrace of stark gender binarism, protecting transgender employees only to the extent they clearly declared themselves to be one sex or the other. The political process may continue to demand caveats on affirmative action and disparate impact claims. Judicial treatment of the new law could go in several directions. Judicial enthusiasm for the PDA, for example, has been mixed. Courts have sliced and diced sex, pregnancy, sex-plus, and sex stereotyping claims in defiance of Congress’s view that all are of a piece. There is no guarantee that their enforcement of a gender amendment would be more enthusiastic. A gender amendment would, however, create at least a chance for some progress, and a chance to avoid creating new problems for intersectional and other non-archetypal plaintiffs.” – Instead of ENDA, A Course Correction for Title VII

[Indonesia] “Heavyset and wearing the pink Islamic headscarf and matching flowing clothes of a pious Indonesian housewife, 48-year-old Maryani says her penis is a gift from God. Born as a boy and raised as a Catholic, Maryani spent years of drinking and selling sex on the streets as part of this city’s transgendered community before discovering Islam. Now, with her eight-year-old adopted daughter Rizky Aryani scrambling across her sturdy thighs, Maryani says her job is to bring Islam to her fellow “waria,” as transgendered people are known here. Tucked into a small alley in Yogyakarta, Maryani’s house has been turned into Indonesia’s first Islamic school set up specifically for waria.” – Indonesian transgendered find refuge in Islamic school

[Finland] “A local Imatra vicar’s announcement that he plans to undergo gender reassignment surgery is forcing the Finnish Evangelical Lutheran Church to take a stance on sex change. The minister, Olli Aalto, who is taking a temporary leave of absence, intends to begin hormone treatments. After this, he will undergo surgery and physically become a woman. Voitto Huotari, the bishop of the local Mikkeli diocese, says Aalto can no longer continue in his job. Aalto considers this view to be blatantly discriminatory. Aalto says he has been encouraged to leave the Church. However, firing him would break equality law. Aalto says he’s considering taking the Church to court if he is expelled from his job. “Pressuring me to leave is already discrimination,” says Aalto.” — Imatra Vicar Plans Gender Reassignment Surgery

Jeez, I thought trans-sexuals were too limp-wristed to do that, Pete …

Anyway, from NoNewsNow, this “news” …

A 53-year-old man has filed a complaint with the Ohio Civil Rights Commission after the City of Cleveland refused to allow him to use the women’s locker rooms and restrooms at a local public swimming pool.

The man, who will only identify himself as “Karen Deamons,” claims to be a woman even though he has been married to women twice and is the father of three children. The city has tried to accommodate the man by allowing him to use private toilet stalls as a dressing room.

“But it’s still not good enough,” says Peter LaBarbera of Americans for Truth About Homosexuality. “He’s demanding his so-called ‘rights’ — ‘rights’ which are literally being created out of thin air by activist judges and activist law based on this absurd notion that a man can be ‘a woman’ because that’s how he feels he is,” he criticizes.

LaBarbera says he is genuinely saddened by the efforts of gender-confused people such as Deamons to pretend to be someone they are not. “The last thing he told the Cleveland Plain Dealer was, ‘I want the city to let me go through the ladies restroom as a normal woman. That’s who I am and what I am.’ And, obviously, if this man were really a ‘normal woman,’ there would not be any controversy,” he points out.

According to LaBarbera, trans-sexuals are shaking their fist in God’s face and demanding to be treated as they want to be rather than as they were created. He warns that thousands of similar complaints and lawsuits can be expected as transsexual activists become emboldened by support from activist judges and legislators.

Trans-sexual files complaint against Cleveland, OH

I am genuinely sad for Pete. It’s not just the “existential emptiness this poor man has” that Wayne Besen referred to — it’s the obvious “financial emptiness” of his … which leads him to “prostitute” himself like this to make ends meet. And, I don’t know, but — speaking of the world’s oldest occupation — it seems to me that the “sex trade” would at least be a more honest form of prostitution for him to pursue.

Well, one show has moved out of town (actually it was closer to Black Mountain and about 18 miles or so up the valley from downtown Asheville). No loss. Just another “circus” whose methods are also certainly questionable. You can read “the reviews” from Pam Spaulding and Wayne Besen.

This Friday-Saturday-Sunday is the 30th annual Bele Chere Festival. A much better show, believe me … hope you can visit here sometime.

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Just a couple of local links …

Equality Asheville

Phoenix

BlogAsheville

OUTLOUD