Recognizing the Right Wing Playbook

While we’ve seen it before, we sometimes don’t see the political forest for the trees. The TransAdvocate crew reviews both local and national news and Dr. Gillian Frank helps us recognize the political tactics that are being used against the trans community by noticing that the exact same tactics were used against numerous other groups. Also, get a trans scholarship or get help recovering from a disaster.


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On the Pod: Cristan Williams, Robin Mack, and Alexis Melvin
Narration of Interview with Dr. Gillian Frank by: Vanalosswen and Ray Bader
Music by: Daniel Berch and the 126ers
Archival Material: Archive.org, NBC, and CNN
Production and Sound Design: Cristan Williams

Topics:

    • Texas Primaries: on 3/6/18; registration deadline to vote in primary is 2/5/18; run-offs are on 5/22/18 with a registration deadline of 4/23/18.
    • Register to Vote in the US
    • Bannon calls Trump Tower meeting “treasonous”Donald Trump’s former chief strategist Steve Bannon has described the Trump Tower meeting between the president’s son and a group of Russians during the 2016 election campaign as “treasonous” and “unpatriotic”, according to an explosive new book seen by the Guardian.
    • At Least 35 (now 42) LGBTQ Texans Are Running for Office in 2018: “The unprecedented field of LGBTQ candidates includes two for governor, one for Texas Supreme Court, two for Texas Senate, eight for Texas House, seven for U.S. Congress, and 12 for various judicial seats. Nineteen of the LGBTQ candidates are female, and 16 are male. Five are transgender, three are African-American, and eight are Hispanic. Six are incumbents who are among the state’s 18 current LGBTQ elected and appointed officials.”
    • New OR Birth Certificate Law: “The law, known as HB 2673A, went into effect Jan. 2 and allows transgender people to change their sex and name on their birth certificate through a notarized application process, without having to go to court. Prior to the law’s passage, a transgender person hoping to change their gender identity on a birth certificate underwent a public process that, advocates say, put them at risk.”
    • TransAdvocate Causes the Downfal of Pacific Justic Institute: “The one thing that you have to realize is that everything the Pacific Justice Institute (PJI) did to a trans kid in Colorado was about PJI’s desire to stop a law in California that codified equality standards for trans children. Law makers in California proposed legislation that would help ensure that California’s trans children would be able to have a school experience free from institutionalized oppression. PJI hated this idea and decided that were going to fight it every step of the way. PJI’s first strategy was to obtusely mock and belittle trans children, apparently believing that it would somehow cause the California Legislature to kill trans protections for these kids…”
    • Il Federal judge denies injunction in anti-trans school lawsuit:  “A judge refused to impose a temporary injunction against Township High School District 211, a setback for more than 50 families (organized by Arizona-based Alliance Defending Freedom) who sued the district in 2016 seeking to end the practice of giving transgender students access to bathrooms and locker rooms of their choice.””Throughout this litigation, one thing remains clear. The groups who filed this case remain unable to demonstrate any harm to their clients from sharing restrooms and locker rooms with students who they perceive as different,” said John Knight, director of the ACLU of Illinois’ LGBTQ Project. “The plaintiffs’ fearmongering and persistent refusal to respect the core gender of these students cannot change the simple fact that there is no legal justification for requiring District 211 to separate and stigmatize transgender students because of who they are.”
    • An Interview with Dr. Gillian Frank: “In doing research for an article about so-called “bathroom bills,” I came across the work of Dr. Gillian Frank, a visiting fellow at Princeton University. I reached out to Dr. Frank to help me better understand the ways in which the very discourse currently focused upon the trans community was used against other marginalized groups throughout American history. What follows is my interview with Dr. Frank.”
    • Cis propagandists concern troll and lie in order to pretend in national press outlets that trans people are taking the free speech of others:

    • On the Cis “Free Speech” Doubble-Standard:

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Cristan Williams is a trans historian and pioneer in addressing the practical needs of underserved communities. She started the first trans homeless shelter in Texas and co-founded the first federally funded housing-first homeless program, pioneered affordable health care for trans people in the Houston area, won the right for trans people to change their gender on Texas ID prior to surgery, started numerous trans social service programs and founded the Transgender Center as well as the Transgender Archives. She has published short stories, academic chapters and papers, and numerous articles for both print and digital magazines. She received numerous awards for her advocacy and has presented at universities throughout the nation, served on several governmental committees and CBO boards, is the Editor of the TransAdvocate, and is a founding board member of the Transgender Foundation of America and the Bee Busy Wellness Center.