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.

I would say it’s a safe bet to make that OneNewsNow avoids posting the term gay in the Associated Press articles they feed to their site by the use of an automatic search-and-replace program. It looks this way because of their embarrassing post of an article that changed the name of Beijing Olympics hopeful Tyson Gay to “Tyson Homosexual” (emphasis added).

Homosexual eases into 100 final at Olympic trials

Tyson Homosexual easily won his semifinal for the 100 meters at the U.S. Olympic track and field trials and seemed to save something for the final later Sunday.

His wind-aided 9.85 seconds was a fairly cut-and-dry performance compared to what happened a day earlier. On Saturday, Homosexual misjudged the finish in his opening heat and had to scramble to finish fourth, then in his quarterfinal a couple of hours later, ran 9.77 to break the American record that had stood since 1999…

They fixed the auto-replace gaff for their AP article feed here, in the retitled article Gay eases into 100 final at Olympic trials.

My guess would be that they consciously use homosexual as a term to throwback to when homosexual was listed as a mental health condition in DSM-II. Activist conservative Christians often tend to believe that it’s a Myth That Psychiatry Has Proven That Homosexual Behavior Is Normal, and because they believe that homosexuality should be relisted as a mental disorder because they believe homosexuality is marked by deviant and sinful behavior that’s tied to an identity.

~~
H/t: The Slog

Don’t give me any of this “environmentally friendly” crap, I think somebody, maybe Pink News, needs to address the negative connotations of this …

Volunteers are painting dog poo bright pink in a bid to shame pet owners into cleaning it up.

The scheme at a beauty spot in Mansfield is being staged to coincide with National Poop Scoop Week, reports K9 magazine.

Volunteers are working with council officials at the Oak Tree Heath nature reserve, a site of special scientific interest.

The council is providing them with bright pink dye to highlight the problem and encourage dog owners to use the bins placed around the site.

The dye used is environmentally friendly because it biodegrades over time.

John Wood, a Sherwood Forest community ranger who came up with the idea, said he was confident it would lead to a reduction in dog fouling.

And Coun Eddie Smith added: “Although dog owners face a £50 fine for not picking up their animal’s waste, we would much rather the environment was kept clear in the first place and if this scheme helps to combat the problem, it is appropriate that we should support it.”

Protesters paint poo pink

Two interesting features worth a look in tomorrow’s New York Times Sunday Magazine (6.29.2008) …

Genes, money, drive … if you have’em, you might have a chance of looking and performing like Dara Torres at 41 years of age …

NEAR THE WARM-UP POOL AT THE Missouri Grand Prix swim meet, in Columbia, a crop of Olympic hopefuls lolled around in practice suits and towels on a Saturday morning in February. Fully clothed among them stood some relics of Olympics past: Scott Goldblatt, who won a gold medal in the 2004 Games, wore an aqua sport coat and a striped tie and was doing on-air commentary for Swimnetwork.com; Mel Stewart, who won two golds and a bronze in 1992, wore the same goofy get-up, working as Goldblatt’s sidekick. Meanwhile, Dara Torres, who won the first of her nine Olympic medals in 1984, a year before Michael Phelps was born, stripped off her baggy T-shirt and sweat pants, revealing a breathtaking body in a magenta Speedo. She pulled on a cap marked with her initials and prepared to swim. Torres is now 41 and the mother of a 2-year-old daughter, Tessa Grace. She broke her first of three world records in 1982, at 14, and she has retired from swimming and come back three times, her latest effort built on an obsessive attention to her aging body.

Torres’s retinue includes a head coach, a sprint coach, a strength coach, two stretchers, two masseuses, a chiropractor and a nanny, at the cost of at least $100,000 per year. At the Olympic trials, this week, in Omaha, Neb., she’s expected to swim fast enough to make her fifth Olympic team. If she does, she’ll be the first American swimmer to compete in five Olympics (despite sitting out 1996 and 2004). She’ll also be oldest female swimmer in the history of the Olympic games.

…

The rest of “A Swimmer of a Certain Age” may be read here.

And Times fashion writer Guy Trebay has a feature on filmmaker and “fashionista” Daphne Guinness …

Because the archetypal women in Daphne Guinness’s short film, ‘‘The Phenomenology of Body,’’ revolve on turntables, it is somehow easier to think of her as a D.J. than as a director. Because the chic images she assembled appear in some sense random, it seems appropriate to think of her as more a sampler than any kind of auteur. And because the story depicting women through the ages is, as its creator points out, not exactly linear and only accidentally feminist, it is easy to see in it hints of autobiography, the personal history of a slightly anachronistic sort of being, less actor than spectator, a woman upon whom the events of life impress themselves.

While few outside the style world are likely to have heard of Guinness, she exercises considerable fascination in fashionable circles and the tabloid press. The daughter of the Guinness brewery heir Jonathan Guinness, formally known as Lord Moyne, Guinness is also the step-granddaughter of Sir Oswald Mosley, the British fascist; the ex-wife of Spyros Niarchos, of Greek shipping fame (she married him at 19; he settled a reputed $40 million dollars on her when they divorced in 1999); and lately the subject of tabloid rumors related to her friendship with Bernard-Henri Lévy, the wealthy, and married, French writer whose intellect is almost as celebrated as his luxuriant head of hair.

…

The rest of “Her Feminine Mystique” may be read here, and her film’s below …

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:

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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 »

I’m not Alex Blaze, Bil Browning is not either, and this is not exactly queer music, but nevermind … it’s Vampire Weekend …

… 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.

Tomorrow, Thursday, June 26th, the U.S. House of Representative’s Committee on Education and Labor will conduct a hearing on “An Examination of Discrimination Against Trangender Americans in the Workplace.”

The hearing is scheduled to begin at 10:30 a.m. EDT (2:30 p.m. GMT).

You should be able to view a live webcast of that hearing by going to the Committee’s Schedule page and clicking on the “Live Webcast” on the right side of the page (or, just go right here).

~~~

h/t Paula K. for passing along the info.

* 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

Egads.

My flight today to cover the U.S. House Education and Labor Subcommittee on Health, Employment, Labor and Pensions scheduled hearing on discrimination against transgender employees in the workplace was a no-go. And wow, what a craptacular story goes with that failure to take flight!

To begin with, I had two different itineraries from Travelocity for this trip. The first one had me leaving today — but apparently Travelocity changed my travel day, and sent a second itinerary I thought was a duplicate of the first one. So basically, I was actually scheduled to travel on the 25th (tomorrow) per the second itinerary, vice today as I thought.

Good thing too, as I lost my wallet this morning!

Here’s this story — I went to my local 7/11’s ATM this morning at a quarter of four to get some cash (again, thought I was flying today) for tips and such. Following that stop I drove directly to a long term airport parking lot in plenty of time to make it for the 6:30 AM flight. I got in the shuttle bus with my two pieces of luggage, and off the driver and I went to the appropriate terminal.

When I was checking my handbag for a tip for the shuttle driver, I found I had no wallet in my handbag — my wallet wasn’t on the floor of the shuttle either. We drove back to the lot: My wallet wasn’t in my car, and it wasn’t under my car. I started freaking out.

I took my luggage out of the shuttle, loaded the pieces back in my car, and then drove back to the 7/11. There I found out my wallet wasn’t at the 7/11 where the ATM was located either. Now I was really freaking out, and actually tearing.

At 7:00 AM, the manager was going to be in, and then could check the surveillance tapes to see if anyone grabbed my wallet — assuming I left it accidentally by the ATM. I left the clerk my cell phone number to call me with what they discovered when they reviewed the surveillance tapes.

So, I drove the block-and-a-half back to my apartment and called up Travelocity to explain my travel problem. After talking to them on the phone for a half-an-hour, I found out about that second itinerary — at least no $150.00 fee for changing my flight for a later flight.

I started destressing. I called up all of my credit card and banking card holders, and cancelled all my plastic. Then I crashed on my living room couch for three hours.

I checked my cell phone messages when I woke up. After a surveillance tape at the 7/11 clearly showed that I’d placed my wallet into my handbag after getting the cash, I got confused. So, I drove back to the parking lot, — my wallet wasn’t under the car in the space I’d parked in this morning, but it was well under the car that was parked next to where I’d parked in the long term lot that morning — it was far enough under that other car that I had to lay on the ground to reach my wallet.

* Whew. * The morning sucked sucktasticly, but it could have been much, much worse. The only lasting frustration is I’m traveling now without plastic. However, my credit union has branches in DC if I turn out not to have traveled with enough cash on hand — but it means I have to go to a branch in person during bank hours if I need to withdraw cash.

But hey! Tomorrow, my friends, is a brand new day! Tomorrow, I fly!

~~~~~
Related:
* Permanent Guest Barista Autumn On The Road This Week

The U.S. House Education and Labor Subcommittee on Health, Employment, Labor and Pensions has scheduled a hearing for June 26th on discrimination against transgender employees in the workplace. Early tomorrow, I’m taking flight to DC to cover the hearing for Pam’s House Blend.

My roundtrip airline ticket has been arranged by the Transgender American Veterans Association (TAVA), and my housing has been arranged by the National Center For Transgender Equality (NCTE). Besides TAVA and NCTE, the Transgender Law Center (TLC) and some individuals within the transgender community also offered to contribute to financing this trip — I directed TLC and these individuals to coordinate donations for the trip with NCTE, as originally they were going to be the single organization to cover my trip related expenses.

My personal agenda issue of civil rights and protections for transgender people –as well as others for whom society deems as not conforming to societal gender norms — is shared by TAVA, NCTE, and TLC, as well as many, many individuals within the broader LGBT community, and of course within the more narrowly defined transgender community. Frankly, I’m very concerned about what the future will look like for transyouth, as well as for transgender adults who haven’t yet come out of the closet — these hearings really do need to be covered by someone from the transgender community that has a personal perspective — a personal stake — regarding transgender legislative issues. Apparently, TAVA, NCTE, and TLC, as well as a number of individual, trans identified folk feel strongly enough about this that they’re sponsoring my trip to DC.

I’m going to be sticking to the GLAAD, NLGJA, and Associated Press guidelines for covering transgender people — as well as for transgender terminology — as much as possible. I stick to these guidelines most of the time, actually, but am pointing this out for the blog readership who want to know whether I’m referring to a person’s natal sex or to a person’s target sex when I use terms like transwoman or transman (always by target sex of the individual referenced, by the way), and for those who think I’m blurring gender lines in inappropriate or unacceptable ways in the choice of terms I use to refer to people of trans experience.

Anywho, I expect I’ll have a lot to write about from DC. I’m hoping to get in some interviews with DC based activists and “non-profiteers” this week too — my guess is that it’ll take me a few weeks to post all of the stories I gather during this trip.

We track blogs, and track what the fundies write over at transgendernews. Scanning the web’s blog engines, we found a post last February from a man named Charlie Ray — someone who labeled himself and his blog Reasonable Christian. The blog entry was titled Christianity Today’s, “The Transgender Moment,” Misleads.

When a Christian takes on the name Reasonable Christian, and writes in the About Me section of his blog…

I’m interested in systematic theology and in philosophy, especially the Christian discipline of apologetics.

…I expect the author of the blog would engage in reasonable discussions in his blogs comment section, in line with Isaiah 1:17,18a

Learn to do right! Seek justice, relieve the oppressed, and correct the oppressor. Defend the fatherless, plead for the widow. Come now, and let us reason together, says the Lord.

More than one wrote comments to the blog entry asking for the scriptural basis for his beliefs, to which he answered:

[After the fold, Charlie doesn't post opinions that differ from his -- Reasonable Christian doesn't actually do any reasoning with folks who disagree with him.]

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From the Los Angeles Times:

SAN DIEGO — Several employees of the county clerk’s office have been reassigned to other duties because they expressed “sincerely held religious objections” to gay marriage, County Clerk Gregory Smith said Friday.

No employee is being allowed to perform marriage duties involving only heterosexual couples, Smith said. Instead, employees are being shifted to other duties that do not include issuing marriage licenses, officiating at civil weddings or acting as witnesses.

…Smith cited Government Code Section 12940, which requires an employer to explore “any available reasonable alternative means of accommodating the religious belief or observance [of an employee], including the possibilities of excusing the person from those duties that conflict with his or her religious belief.”

The San Diego Union-Tribune added that fourteen county clerks inquired about religious exemptions to performing marriages:

[E]mployees were told they would have to perform the ceremonies without discrimination or seek a reassignment within the department or the county.

“The Department is still exploring possible ways to accommodate your religious concerns, but you should realize that it will be impossible for you to remain in your current assignment,” employees were told in the June 5 e-mail.

Given that answer, Smith said, several employees withdrew their objections, but a few chose reassignment. He would not give specific numbers. Smith also would not say whether the 14 employees whose e-mails were released were the only ones who objected.

Focus On The Family/CitizenLink got the facts wrong over the numbers…

At least 14 employees with the San Diego County Clerk’s office have been reassigned because they expressed religious objections to gay “marriage” and refused to perform the ceremonies.

Does that count as lying, or just sloppy journalism?

Focus On The Family/CitizenLink added:

Jenny Tyree, associate marriage analyst for Focus on the Family Action, said state workers’ moral and religious beliefs are in tension with the state. Voters will decide how this plays out when they vote on a state marriage amendment defining marriage as between one man and woman.

“Amending the state constitution in November would not only protect the definition of marriage,” Tyree said, “but also will protect the First Amendment rights of people who believe that marriage is the union of a man and a woman.”

It’s easy to give easy digs on Focus On The Family/CitizenLink/Focus on the Family Action for their marriage is the union of a man and a woman language, other than I feel a need to join RadicalRuss in pointing out Sen. Obama recently started using the same language on marriage equality as conservative Christians are using — again.

[Below the fold: Where Sen. Obama recently used the "marriage is between a man and a woman" language]

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