This is crossposted from one of my favorite bloggers, Monica Roberts, with her permission.  (She posts over on her own blog, TransGriot, and over at Bilerico).

The email by Sue is a little irritating because Sue didn’t do research on Monica — heck, Monica was IGFE’s Trinity Award winner for 2006. (IGFE’s description of the award: “Trinity Awards honor our heroes and heroines, people who have performed extraordinary acts of courage and love in service to the Transgender Community.”) I know how much civil rights work Monica has done over the years to benefit multiple communities — I know Monica meets the ultimate measure of a woman by where she stands in at times of challenge and controversy. And, from what I’ve seen, Monica understands that life’s most urgent question is “What are you doing for others?”

Frankly, Sue doesn’t know enough about Monica’s past decade of civil rights and community work make the statement “You really should stick to what you know best and keep out of the bigger picture.” I would dare say Monica has a much, much better “big picture” understanding of federal level civil rights issues than Sue does.

Let me add here that I’ve known Sue personally, as she, like me, is a San Diego resident. She has a history of working with transgender people in support groups/support organizations, worked with others at Family Health Services of San Diego to get a transgender needs assessment published, and worked with others in support of ammending San Diego’s Human Dignity Ordinance to add transgender employment protections. Frankly, I can’t figure what happened to her perspective on trangender people between late 2003 and now — I know she’s no longer in the mainstream of transgender activism here in our hometown.

The comments are turned off here, but if you want to comment on this article by Monica, please go to the original post at TransGriot.
~~Autumn~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hateraid From A WBT

One of the things that’s part of being an activist, especially one who has writing talents and an ever increasing media profile is critcism.

I’m a big girl and I expect it, nor do I presume that ‘errbody’ agrees with what I have to say. I welcome constructive criticism if it is done in a loving way that helps me become a better person and a better activist.

But this is what was sitting in my e-mail inbox when I checked it early on the morning of January 25 after doing 15 hours at work.

From: “Sue Robins”
To:
Subject: I owe you thanks
Date: Thu, 24 Jan 2008 14:35:25 -0800

Minica;

I wanted to thank you for showing your true colors up on Bilerico today. You really should stick to what you know best and keep out of the bigger picture. What you and others are demonstrating is the inability of the transgender community to function in a polite environment without saying disrespectful thing. I have heard it from more then a few of my post-transition friends that you and your ilk are making a mockery of the transgender rights cause. This is the very reason people have been leaving the TG movement in droves.

You don’t seem to understand you have to work with straight middle class men and women if you want to insure progress in transgender rights. You have to play the game by their rules not Barney Frank’s. One of those rules is there is only two sexes Men and Women fortunately a large part of the transgender community understands that. You just keep posting your disrespectful comments you are showing the world that transgenders are nothing more then freaks to be seen on Jerry Springer; thankfully my transgender friends don’t act that way.

Have a nice day

Hugs
Sue Robins

————–

(Cue Papi Boulevardez laugh)

FYI TransGriot readers. I didn’t put my first post on the Bilerico Project blog until 6:48 PM Friday evening. So at the time I read this e-mail I didn’t know what the hell she was talking about.

I’ve since discovered that Sue Robins is one of those white transsexual separatists that I’ve been tangling with in various online transgender groups since the late 90’s.

Before I start the fun and festivities taking this e-mail apart and rebutting her WBT azz (and in this case the WBT stands for weak-minded belligerent transsexual) enjoy this music video from Jill Scott for her hit song ‘Hate on Me’.

I wanted to thank you for showing your true colors up on Bilerico today. You really should stick to what you know best and keep out of the bigger picture.

Why? What is it about lil old me that ’scurrs’ you and your ilk so much? And as for keeping out of the bigger picture, too late. While you were cowering in your closet, I was lobbying congressmembers in 1998. I was sitting at a table at Task Force HQ in DC back in 2000 during their National Transgender Policy meeting. I’ve been in this effort for ten years now and I ain’t going away.

What you and others are demonstrating is the inability of the transgender community to function in a polite environment without saying disrespectful thing.

There you go again with that BS ‘horizontal hostility’ crap. The interesting thing is that every time this shade gets thrown by nekulturny people like you, y’all jump off crap, then you wanna whine and holler ‘horizontal hostility’ when people call you on it.

I have heard it from more then a few of my post-transition friends that you and your ilk are making a mockery of the transgender rights cause. This is the very reason people have been leaving the TG movement in droves.

Oh really? The one thing that’s making a mockery of the transgender rights cause is the inept way that it’s been handled for the last ten years by some peeps that share your ethnic background.

As for your assertion that people are leaving the movement in droves, got any facts to back that statement up? Methinks you’re just counting your whiny clueless ‘WBT’ peeps who have repeatedly demonstrated breathtaking ignorance on a vast array of subjects and the inability to work and play well with others.

You don’t seem to understand you have to work with straight middle class men and women if you want to insure progress in transgender rights. You have to play the game by their rules not Barney Frank’s.

This is priceless. White male privilege in action, folks. You are not only discounting and disrespecting my intelligence and abilities, but have the nerve to try to lecture me about how to pass rights legislation when I’ve been to Capitol Hill, two state legislatures, and recently the Jefferson County school board to do precisely that.

One of those rules is there is only two sexes Men and Women fortunately a large part of the transgender community understands that.

Umm, medical science and biology says otherwise. I think our intersex friends would have a bone to pick with you about your narrow assessment as well. Fortunately a larger section of the transgender community and our allies understand that gender is a continuum, and everybody fits somewhere along that line. The only peeps that share your gender=genitalia dogma besides some of your WBT friends are the Religious Right, the Catholic Church and Barney Frank.

You just keep posting your disrespectful comments you are showing the world that transgenders are nothing more then freaks to be seen on Jerry Springer; thankfully my transgender friends don’t act that way.

FYI, Jerry Springer’s peeps called me and asked me to come on their show in 1997. I told them hell no and lose my phone number.

Funny, media professionals over the years seem to like my comments enough to continue to ask me to do interviews such as my local newspaper or the Colorlines magazine one I just did. Go pick it up at a bookseller near you.

The 600 hits per day I get on this blog seems to indicate that peeps like what I have to say. I wrote a newspaper column in a GLBT paper for three years and co-hosted a radio show for two.

So what have you done to uplift transgender peeps today or over the last ten years besides sit behind your computer all day and rant?

By the way Sue, I have a fresh batch of Hater tots prepared for you that y’all can munch on to go with that Vanilla Ice flavored Hateraid you and your friends are drinking by the 55 gallon drum.

You have a blessed day.

I have me some tickets to see Kelly of YouTube fame on March 22nd. I am sooooo excited about this!

When it comes to the Democratic presidential candidates, do they mean what they say? Do they say what they mean?

The Advocate stated in their article Dem Candidates Equally Gay-Friendly:

Although none of the candidates support same-sex marriage, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and John Edwards are in favor of same-sex civil unions, a transgender-inclusive ENDA, and a repeal of the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell.”

I don’t know if that’s true of Sen. Clinton. Her campaign says:

It is inconceivable to Hillary that people who work hard and do a good job every day can still be fired because of who they are or who they love. It’s unfair, it’s un-American, and she will put a stop to it.

Words matter. I don’t see her pinning herself down on what she supports regarding LGBT people the with the words sexual orientation or gender identity and expression.

And, even though other Democratic candidates use LGBT supportive words, will their actions match their words if they took office?

Well, Sen. Edwards campaign says…

Workers should be judged by the quality of their performance, not their sexual orientation or gender identity. While in the Senate, Edwards cosponsored the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. He also believes that stronger enforcement is necessary to prevent employment discrimination by federal agencies.

…Bay Windows on January 28th pointed out:

[H]e … declined to adopt a non-discrimination policy covering sexual orientation and gender identity for his own [Senate] office.

And, even though when accepting Sen. Kennedy’s endorsement, Sen. Obama was quoted as saying:

“The dream has never died … it lives on in those Americans, young and old, rich and poor, black and white, Latino and Asian and Native American, gay and straight, who are tired of a politics that divides us and want to recapture the sense of common purpose that we had when John Kennedy was president of the United States of America”

He’s also had Donnie McClurkin on a concert for his campaign. CNN reported on McClurkin’s comments at that concert:

“I’m going to say something that’s going to get me in trouble.”

“They accuse me of being anti-gay and a bigot,” McClurkin said. “We don’t believe in discrimination. We don’t believe in hatred, and if you do you are in the wrong place at the wrong time. That’s the whole premise of God. That’s the whole premise of Christ is love, love, love. But there is a side of Christ that deals in judgment, and all sin is against God.”

…”Don’t call me a bigot or anti-gay, when I have been touched by the same feelings,” McClurkin went on. “When I have suffered with the same feelings. Don’t call me a homophobe, when I love everybody … Don’t tell me that I stand up and I say vile words against the gay community because I don’t. I don’t speak against the homosexual. I tell you that God delivered me from homosexuality.”

And, Sen. Obama has Rev. Kirbyjon Caldwell campaigning for him. Caldwell’s Windsor Village United Methodist Church has outreach that includes an “ex-gay” ministry.

I’ll echo a similar sentiment to Pam’s, in that whoever the Democrats nominate for President will probably be incredibly better than whoever the Republicans nominate for President — so the Democratic Nominee will likely get my vote this November. But, that doesn’t mean I have great faith that any of these candidates will be the “LGBT President” when they get into office. Either what they don’t say concerns me, or what they say compared to what they’ve done concerns me.

Well, time to dig out the lighter side of life for weekend discussion around the coffee house’s couches. If you’re ordering coffee for me at the counter, I’d love a hammerhead.

Last Monday (January 21, 2008), Hannah inked my tattoo. It’s big (taking up the right side quarter of my back), it’s incredibly colorful and beautiful. To me, it speaks to powerful womanhood, being a parent, and my personal history. I want to show Freya off like crazy because she’s just incredible.

But, because had the tattoo of Freya inked on camera for the show LA Ink, I can’t show y’all what it looks like until after my episode airs on The Learning Channel (TLC). * sigh * If I could of had this beautiful body art done by Hannah without going on TV, I probably would have — then I’d get to show it to you now. My friends who have seen the tattoo have used the terms “Awesome” and “BadAss” to describe it — to say I’m very, very pleased with the final result is a huge understatement.

While on camera, I plugged transgender people, transgender civil rights, LGBT civil rights, gender identity, and Pam’s House Blend when I was getting inked. How much of what I talked about on camera ends up on the cutting room floor is another thing altogether — but hey, I tried to be the activist.

For the rest of my life, I see this tattoo of Freya as not only a beautiful piece of body artwork that documents some important aspects of my life, but also as a tool to talk to folk about lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender civil rights issues.

As soon as I have info on the episode air date, I’ll send it out to y’all — and after the episode airs, I’ll post a picture of the tattoo on (Ab)Normal Heights.

~~~~~
Related:
* Dates Are Set, So Full Speed Ahead
* An LA Ink Tattoo For Blender Autumn?

Turning from small persons to small minds, there’s this snippet from the Contra Costa Times this morning …

Word of boys being told to dress as girls for a day, and girls as boys, touched a nerve with some parents at Valley View Elementary School in Pleasanton last week..

Parents were concerned that the supposed “Cross Gender Day” was meant to promote tolerance of transgender people.

“I think it’s absolutely appalling,” said one mother, who had heard about the event the night before from her first-grader. Then she heard it briefly explained as “gender day” by a school staff member that morning. “They should promote academics, and let morals to the family.”

Principal Michelle Brynjulson told The Eye she had gotten calls, too but was able to quell fears.

Every Friday is “Spirit Day,” when Valley View students are asked to wear clothing with the school logo or blue school color. Once in a while, there’s a different theme — like pajama day, or funny hair day.

Brynjulson said the student council got the idea for a day for girls to dress like boys, and vice-versa, after a boy student came to school on Halloween dressed as a girl.

“It’s pure fun,” she said.

As reported in the UK’s Metro this past week (cue up the Randy) …

A criminal gang which hides small people inside bags is being blamed for a spate of robberies on buses in Sweden.

Police are working on the theory that miniature thieves are being hidden inside sports bags, which are then placed in the luggage compartments of coaches. During the course of the journey, the pint-sized miscreants emerge from their bags and rifle through the belongings of other passengers, taking what they fancy.

Authorities have warned passengers against placing their valuables in the potentially crime-riddled luggage compartments.

Police are quizzing ‘people of limited stature’ with criminal records.

One witness told police how she saw two men trying to squeeze a large, heavy bag into a cramped luggage space – despite the fact that there was an empty compartment elsewhere on the bus, which was travelling from Västerås to Stockholm.

When she retrieved her luggage at the end of her journey, she found that a camera, a purse, and a portable hard drive had all gone missing, The Local reports.

Pia Kråvall, a spokesperson for Swebus, said: ‘It is very possible that a small person is being placed in a bag in order to search through the other bags. We have recently received several reports of thefts, including on the Västerås to Stockholm line.’

Currently, authorities are not certain if the tiny scoundrels behind the micro-heists are likely to be children, or midgets.

Little people rob Sweden’s buses

 

If you call me faggot, she/male, or transvestitute as part of verbal discourse, that’s protected speech under the constitution. However, if one calls me an LGBT pejorative while violently attacking me in a jurisdiction with a hate crime statute, that would seem to me to be a prima fascia case for labeling the assault a hate crime, and it would be up to the attacker to prove that use of the LGBT pejorative wasn’t meant to single out the victim because of an individual’s sexual orientation or gender identity.

Apparently not in Baltimore; apparently their statute sets such a high bar for qualifying a crime as a hate crime that beating an LGBT victim who was previously unknown to the assailants — while yelling an LGBT pejorative isn’t a hate crime — doesn’t indicate a hate crime. Apparently, use of an LGBT pejorative while beating a visibly LGBT person is — per the statements of the Baltimore City, Maryland Attorney General’s office — to be an exercise of free speech. And, apparently, for an attack to be considered a hate crime, it must be a premeditated attack.

From the WJZ report entitled Woman: I Was Attacked For Being Transgendered:

On her way to buy some orange juice, 26-year-old Pamela Brown, who started living as a woman three years ago, said she was viciously attacked because she is transgendered.

“I saw five guys blocking the storeway. They called me a [expletive deleted] and then I was hit. Then I was attacked by two more guys from the back and my fiance ran over,” she said. “I probably could have been killed if I was by myself.”

Brown is now recovering while in protective police custody.

…Police commented on the attack last week.

“More than likely it will be upgraded to a hate crime, simply because of the things that were being said,” said Troy Harris, Baltimore City Police spokesperson.

But now the city state’s attorney’s office is not pursuing hate crime charges. Why?

A spokesperson says while there was provocative language, it is free speech and there’s no evidence of premeditation.

Two suspects have been arrested; however…

[WJZ-TV Video on the individual crime, and hate crimes in general, after the fold]

Read the rest of this entry »

Last week I posted on the “smelliness” of a story entitled Controversial Law on Gender Identity Tested by an ABC affiliate in Maryland — well, Teach The Facts and Equality Loudoun have updates: By golly, it smelled like a publicity stunt because there’s even more facts that really seem to say it was one. It appears that what the ABC affiliate (WJLA) left out of their story was extremely significant.

Here are some tidbits from the Teach The Facts piece that have come out since the original WJLA story broke:

…a trustworthy friend of [Teach The Facts] had a discussion with a manager at the [Rio Sport and Health Club] — we will not use their name since it wasn’t an official interview — who said that there was “an activist” in the lobby of the gym at the time that this “man in a dress” went in….

According to this manager, the person in a dress signed in with a crowd of other guests so it is not clear who it was or if it was a man or a woman; they then proceeded directly to the ladies locker room, went into it and to the back of the room, and then came out and left the building. When this person came in, the employee at the door thought something strange was going on and called for an attendant to go check the ladies room, but the person left before they got there. Rio staff say they do not know who the person was.

The manager at [Rio Sport and Health Club] said she did not know who called the media, but she said the activist in the lobby was filmed in an interview after the event. The only “activist” interviewed by Channel 7 (the only media outlet indiscriminate enough to send a reporter to the scene) was Theresa Rickman of the CRW [Citizens for a Responsible Government], who has written in our comments section that she goes to the Bethesda Sport and Health gym, not the one in Rio — so why would she have been there? In its newscast, Channel 7 failed to mention Ms. Rickman’s connection to the anti-gay, anti-transgender group, quoting her as if she were an ordinary citizen on the scene.

The manager at Rio told our friend, quote: “I think it was a publicity stunt.”

Equality Loudoun added some commentary:

The spokesperson for the group claiming that the new law prohibiting discrimination against transgender people will permit “men” to use the ladies’ room was present in the lobby of the health club - not her own health club - at the very time that this unidentified “man in a skirt” person signed in, quickly paraded through the ladies’ locker room, and then promptly disappeared. How interesting.

Also interesting: The woman in the locker room who reported this suspicious person to management was identified as Mary Ann Ondray - which seems to be a hasty phonetic spelling of her actual name, Andree. In one of the Anti-Gay Industry propaganda mills that was fed this story by CRW, they spell her name Andree. What would prompt them to change the spelling? There is no indication that they contacted her; the content of their story is basically a cut-and-paste from the Channel 7 story, with the addition of some commentary by another CRW spokesperson, Michelle Turner. It appears that Turner may have corrected the spelling of Andree’s name. But why would Turner have that information? Is Andree one of the 3000 or so names on CRW’s petition? We may yet find out.

This is looking more and more like what many of us have suspected it is — the locker room invasion by a-man-in-a-skirt was a mockery of actual transgender people like me by hypocritical Christian conservatives, orchestrated by the Theresa Rickman of Citizens for a Responsible Government. This was hypocritical specifically because they themselves apparently dressed the man-in-a-skirt in direct contradiction to their own interpretation of Deuteronomy 22:5 and Genesis 1:27.

This is particularly offensive to me because Theresa Rickman and company apparently felt a need to simulate behavior of transgender women in a way that no transgender woman I’ve ever known would behave. And, leave to WorldNetDaily to pick up on the story without bothering to check out if the story was a publicity stunt.

The news division at WJLA and WorldNetDaily need to apologize to the transgender people for falling for what looks more and more only to be a deceptively conceived publicity stunt. And, even more distain should be heaped on WorldNetDaily to smear transgender people because of a hypocritically executed stunt. If the man-in-a-skirt were a conservative Christian recruited by the Citizens for a Responsible Government, his motivations to deceive the public would be “sinful,” and the act of his dressing up in a skirt should be considered just as “sinful” as they consider transgender people’s dressing in clothing not associated with their natal sex. In other words, if they consider me a “sinner” for allegedly “cross-dressing” as an out-of-the-closet transsexual, then the Citizens for a Responsible Government’s apparent plant would be just as “sinful” as I am for his cross-dressing stunt.

I can’t imagine that this kind of apparent deception would be something the Jesus they believe in would do, or even tacitly approve of.

Theresa Rickman, if you’re reading this, you and your man-in-a-skirt owe my transgender peers and me an apology — or an explanation. It sure looks like you and your organization bore false witness against us by having a man pretend to be transgender, and act in provocative in a way my peers just don’t. To me, it looks like you couldn’t find a case where an out transgender women had engaged in the kind of activities that you keep saying we would engage, so it’s becoming clear you created an incident to make the story.

If true, that would be you bearing false witness angainst your transgender neighbors — it makes you and your man-in-a-skirt liars.

I’ll be waiting to read your apology, or your explanation of how you knew to be at the gym to be interviewed before the provocative incident occured. And, I would expect you to name who the man-in-a-skirt was if this was pure publicity stunt, and he should be publicly apologizing to my transgender peers and me also — and probably to your Christian peers as well for behaving in direct contradiction to your own interpretation of Deuteronomy 22:5 and Genesis 1:27 to make your inane point.

I won’t hold my breath.

~~~~~
H/t: David at Equality Loudoun

Call me a frustrated, amateur librarian. Even knowing from the New Hampshire Primary that polls can lie, I have to admit I’m always attracted on polls measuring the social issues views of a population.

With that in mind, the U.K.’s Pink News has an article out today (entitled US evangelicals rate gays as top election issue) on one recent study by the Bama Group. It’s a “social climate” poll that addresses where certain constituencies stand as a population on certain issues. Some key results that speak to Evangelicals and LGBT civil rights issues:

A survey has revealed that for evangelical Christians in the United States homosexuality is one of the key issues in the 2008 election.

The Barna Group’s research found that in this important group of voters, whose strong support propelled George W Bush into the White House, abortion was the most pressing problem their country faces for 94%.

For 75% of evangelicals “homosexual lifestyles” or the “political efforts of homosexual activists” were a concern. Among the general population only 35% agreed.

“Out of more than sixty different subgroups reviewed, there were no differences of opinion on these two survey questions, suggesting that the two issues may be linked in Americans’ minds,” the report states.

…Apart from abortion and gays, the key issues for evangelicals are personal debt of Americans (81%) and TV and film content (79%).

They were less worried about AIDS than any other sector of the population and just a third of them cited global warming as a concern.

To a lesser extent, the America’s general population has concerns of about conservative Christians too:

However, 23% of voters said the “political efforts of conservative Christians” are a major problem facing the country.

I’m keeping it in mind that courting the Evangelical constituency is going to be tough for Democratic candidates. Conservative Christians, of which apparently 75% of them being predisposed against LGBT civil rights issues — such as marriage equality and employment protections — are for the most paret against me and my civil rights, on a very personal level. Yet, apparently at the same time, 25% of that constituency’s population is either neutral to, or on some level supportive of LGBT civil rights.

So how does a Democratic Party candidate reach out for that possible 25% constituency without looking he or she is reaching for the other 75% that do? — and that’s making the big assumption that a candidate’s position on LGBT civil rights is a core belief, vice a position vice a position taken solely for getting as many LGBT voters to cast for him or her as possible.

I vote in California’s Democratic Primary in about two weeks. I still don’t know who I’m going vote for. Looking at how strongly Evangelical, conservative Christians feel about my civil rights makes it difficult for me not to vote Democratic this year. It’s just trying to figure out which of the Democratic candidates is going to screw me over the least should he or she get into office…which one of them is triangulating the least for my vote, and is actually supporting the ideals of equality for all Americans — including equality and civil rights for a transwoman like me.

Porn is so yesterday — today, it’s pork. Forget Montgomery County, it’s time for CRC to take a stand on a meatier issue …

BEIJING (Reuters) - A Chinese middle school has ordered children to feed pigs three times a day, angering parents who complained it was denying their children a proper education, state media said Monday amid worries over soaring pork prices.

Chunchang Nanlu Middle School on the southern holiday resort island of Hainan had used 10,000 yuan ($1,400) in poverty alleviation funds to buy 36 piglets, the Beijing News said.

“Besides raising pigs, the students must also grow vegetables as part of a compulsory class,” the newspaper said.

Some parents were angry because the class was taking time from other studies and had taken their grievances to local media.

“Each pig can be sold for 1,600 yuan ($220) with each class splitting the profit of 1,000 yuan ($130), so of course it is advantageous for the school to continue raising pigs,” the newspaper quoted a parent as saying.

The school maintained that the class was good for students’ education.

China’s pork prices have been ballooning on the back of high feed costs and an outbreak of blue ear disease that killed as many as a million pigs last year.

Worries about rising prices reached new heights in a southwestern town where a man has been raising three squealing pigs in his apartment, local media reported earlier.

Su Yanshan, a livestock slaughterer, kept the animals on the enclosed balcony of his second-floor home in Chongqing.

Su’s wife told the Chongqing Evening News they planned to sell the 100 kg pigs for the Lunar New Year holiday in early February, when pork is in peak demand for dumplings, sausage and other traditional dishes.

Parents snort as school enforces pig rearing

Blame it on Jenny, but I’m thinkin’ of Joe …

I’m looking through you, where did you go
I thought I knew you, what did I know
You don’t look different, but you have changed
I’m looking through you, you’re not the same

Your lips are moving, I cannot hear
Your voice is soothing, but the words aren’t clear
You don’t sound different, I’ve learned the game.
I’m looking through you, you’re not the same

Why, tell me why, did you not treat me right?
Love has a nasty habit of disappearing overnight

…

“I’m Looking Through You” - The Beatles

A couple of stories hit the news this week about transsexual people trying to change their names to reflect who they are now. In both cases, they were thwarted (which is why the stories made the news), and both, in articles about their cases, were accompanied by statements indicating anti-transgender bias.

One case involves Rev. Ronnie Elise Elrod, who wanted the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary to change the name on her diploma to reflect her change from male-to-female. Perhaps not too surprisingly, the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary refused the request. Their bureaucratic policy sounded pretty uniform in application to me:

“We have an institutional policy that we do not change names on diplomas,” said R. Albert Mohler, president of the seminary in Louisville, Ky. “That’s just the bottom line.”

Mohler said the school also doesn’t change names to note a change in someone’s marital status.

“If you’re married, if you change your name, if you move to another planet — it doesn’t matter,” added Mohler. “We’re not going to change the name on a diploma. … That long predated anyone asking for it for this reason.”

But of course, Dr. Mohler, know within segments of the transgender community for his articles Gender Confusion in the Kindergarten? and A Transgender Pastor in the Pulpit?, was further quoted in the Religion News Service article on Rev. Elrod:

Mohler has been vocal in his questioning of whether a man can truly change into a woman or vice versa but he, too, views this as a separate issue from the school’s diploma policy. He has written a column and spoken on his radio program about the case of a United Methodist transgender minister who has been permitted to remain pastor of his Baltimore church.

Mohler cited the Southern Baptist faith statement, which calls “the gift of gender … part of the goodness of God’s creation.”

Mohler said gender is “something that is assigned by God” and surgery may change how an individual looks but not their “chromosomal structure.”

“We would want to respond with pastoral concerns to persons who are struggling with this issue,” he said. “But we cannot endorse any confusion of gender and certainly not the notion of a sex change or sex assignment and the surgery that may be involved.”

The other story on a transgender woman being thwarted in her attempt to change her name to reflect her female identity comes from Will County, Illinois. In the Chicago Tribune article Transgender woman seeks name fee waiver (emphasis added):

A transgender woman who wants to change her legal name from “Donald” to “Daunn” asked the state Supreme Court Thursday to order Will County’s chief judge to waive about $450 in court fees because of her low income.

The legal filing by Daunn Turner, 52, of Lockport contended Will County Chief Judge Stephen White rejected the request by declaring, “I am not spending the county’s money on something like this.”

White told her the name change was “something that she wanted, not something that she needed,” the court filing said.

Imagine yourself with a name usually associated with the opposite sex: How necessary do you think it would be to change your name to match your gender identity? How difficult do you think it might be to get a job when your name doesn’t match the gender you are presenting as? Name changes for transsexual people aren’t a just a “want,” the name changes help us present as who we are. And more importantly, the name change helps transsexual people gain meaningful employment.

Thankfully, in Daunn Turner’s case, Lambda Legal has stepped in, and has filed papers in her case:

The court filing contended that a judge must grant a person’s “indigency application” if paying the fee would create a substantial hardship.

The judge’s personal views shouldn’t be a factor, said Turner’s attorney, Christopher Clark.

“That’s not the way a judge is supposed to determine whether someone can use the court system,” Clark said.

What’s in a name? For a transsexual person, it often is about implications of gender identity. It also is about how well he or she can function in society as a member of his or her target sex — such as with employment, housing, and public accommodation. When it’s tough to change one’s name on one’s identification and historical documents, it’s often tough to function in society as who one is.

I didn’t need a GPS (Gender Porn Sex) device to find the place. I simply relied on WorldNetDaily. “WorldNetDaily!?”, you say. Well, heck, they got “World” in their name so they must know a thing or two about … geography, at least, right?

So, aided by a recent story in WND, and by another one today, I think I’ve pretty well located this wicked and evil place:

The horror! The horror!

I don’t read Chris Crain’s blog much anymore. For those who don’t know, Crain is the former managing editor of Window Media (Southern Voice, Washington Blade, etc.). His views on transgender inclusion in ENDA irritates me, specifically as he’s the one who dreamed up the phrase trans-jacking to describe the work transgender activists have done on ENDA. And, he often still digs out the phrase when he discusses the inclusion of “gender identity and expression” in ENDA language.

My passionate dislike of Crain’s views on “trans-jacking” has gotten me in trouble. A few months ago, I stepped all over myself in a PHB post — if y’all are interested in the details, first read my post; then read my “mea culpa” at the end of that same post. Basically, he and I organically came up with similar pieces on the same story, and I thought he got his idea from me. Not the case at all.

Frankly, my opinion of him was pretty low because of that “trans-jacking” thing, so I expected the worst from him. By the time I realized I’d been utterly and completely wrong, one of Chris Crain’s old publications — the Washington Blade — picked up on my horrendous mistake and assigned me some pretty awful motives. My motives weren’t what they said they were, but still — I think I deserved the beating I took for assuming the worst about Crain because I passionately disagreed with his views on ENDA. I relearned the valuable lesson that I had thought I had already known — people aren’t evil or unethical just because I passionately disagree with them.

One of the other things that came out of that experience was a realization that, minus the one major issue of transgender inclusion in ENDA, I tend to agree with Mr. Crain a lot more than I don’t, and (horrid thought!) I often have thought processes that mirror his. I’ve found I often tend to draw similar conclusions to his from facts we find independently.

Such as, I planned on writing a piece for this weekend about how tough it was to find source material for Q Of The Day - What’s Your “Deal Breaker” Issue?, especially on the “Candidate X For President” websites.

Well, Chris Crain beat me to writing that piece.

[Excerpts from Chris Crain's article after the fold]

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Sometimes, you see legislation that hits the hopper and just scratch your head in disbelief. A piece of proposed legislation in Tennessee (House Bill 2997) fits that “scratch your head” description. From Out & About:

Representative Stacey Campfield (R-Knoxville) has filed a bill in the Tennessee House of Representatives that would outlaw any discussion or free speech about homosexuality or bisexuality in any public elementary or middle school….“We wouldn’t have expected something like this,” said Tennessee Equality Project (TEP) President Christopher Sanders. “Since it was filed we have to take it seriously. It shows the absurdity the far right will go. The bill would compromise the very purpose of education and would inhibit the free speech rights of Tennesseans.”

Representative Stacey Campfield apparently has a history of submitting some “interesting,” socially conservative legislation in the past:

He has in the past proposed to replace the state’s tax on food with a tax on pornography and last year wanted the state to require death certificates for abortions.

LGBT people can hope this bill has no traction, yet the sad part is that the LGBT community will likely have to expend time and resources to fight this astonishing piece of legislation that would obviously marginalize children in LGBT families.

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Further Reading:
* Text of House Bill 2997