Justin's Political Corner
Today marks an important victory for the transgender community, even though it may appear to be a small paperwork technicality. The Social Security Administration (SSA) has announced that it is now much easier for trans people to change their gender identity on their Social Security records. All that will now be required, according to the National Center for Transgender Equality, is for individuals to submit government-issued documentation reflecting a gender change, or a certification from a physician confirming they have undergone appropriate clinical treatment for gender transition.
This is a significant departure from the previous policy, which required documentation of complete sex reassignment surgery. Many trans people never undergo such procedures, either because they are too expensive, because they do not want to lose their procreative ability, or because it simply isn’t an important change for them to make to find authenticity in their identities. The SSA change eliminates this high standard for trans people to obtain the appropriate documentation for the gender that reflects how they live their daily lives.
Among the ten arguments are offensive lies and stereotypes about gay people, as well as arguments that aren’t even substantively relevant:
1. Allowing Gay Scouts But Not Leaders Is Inconsistent
This argument is actually valid, making it one of the weakest presented in the letter, because it supports an inclusive policy for all Scouts and leaders, not a continuation of the ban. The only inconsistency in the membership policy is that it excludes people who are gay (and atheist). On My Honor may even be correct that the inconsistency “will surely draw an equal protection lawsuit,” but that is the fault of the Boy Scouts of America for trying to cling to some form of discrimination.
2. Boy-On-Boy Sexual Contact Will Increase
This argument conflates sexual orientation with sexual behavior, while promulgating the myth that people who are gay are predatory. The implication is that gay teenagers should never even be allowed to go camping because they’re a threat to their straight friends. Such fear-mongering serves only to further demonize the gay community.
3. All Troops Will Have to ‘Facilitate Open Homosexuality’
This isn’t a new argument; it’s merely a complaint derived from a desire to discriminate.
4. So Many Will Leave In Protest That The Scouts Will Collapse
If “tens- and possibly hundreds of thousands of parents and Scouts” leave the BSA, as On My Honor suggests they will, it’s an insult to the very integrity of the program to begin with. Rather than supporting the many values and lessons the Scouts stand for, these individuals will prove their only reason for participation in the Scouts was because the organization is anti-gay.
5. Parents Will Lose Their Right To Shield Their Kids From Learning About Gay People
Like argument #2, this claim relies on the false assumption that being gay automatically makes an individual somehow more “sexual.” Having gay Scouts will not increase the level of discussion about sex anymore than having straight Scouts does. Even a “17-year-old gay activist openly flaunting his sexuality and promoting a leftist political agenda” would honor the Scouts’ commitment to improving society by being helpful, friendly, courteous — and particularly brave.
6. The Scouts Are Caving To Pressure From Society
On My Honor is disappointed that it was just last year that the Scouts decided that banning gay Scouts was “the absolute best policy,” but now “BSA’s top leadership is more concerned about what is popular in the polls taken outside the Scouting family.” When that decision was made, the Scouts refused to explain it, likely because there is no sensible justification for it. Since then, the organization has lost the corporate sponsorship of Intel, UPS, and Merck, so it’s not surprising its leaders became less attached to a policy they couldn’t even defend.
7. Units Who Don’t Comply Will Be Legally Vulnerable
Like argument #1, this concern simply reveals the inconsistency of allowing gay Scouts but not leaders. When the Supreme Court ruled in favor of BSA’s policy in 2000, Chief Justice William Rehnquist argued that the BSA engages in “expressive association.” If that expression is applied inconsistently, it would no longer define — or protect — the organization. This argument is simply a redundant concern that units will no longer be able to get away with discrimination.
8. The Policy Will Allow ‘Transgendered Girls’ In the BSA
First of all, transgender girls would probably be more interested in the Girl Scouts, which they’re actually welcome to join. Contrary to On My Honor’s fears, gender identity has nothing to do with sexuality whatsoever. Transgender boys should be allowed to join the Boy Scouts, but that form of inclusion is not addressed by this policy. The language “sexual preference” in the proposed change is disappointing, but only because it’s inaccurate nomenclature for sexual orientation.
9. Language In The Resolution Is Merely Symbolic
On My Honor seems to think it’s consequential that the “whereas” statements that justify the resolution will not be part of the policy once it’s approved. It apparently has no qualms about putting forth its own symbolic arguments.
10. Many In the Scouting Family Support Discrimination
On My Honor conveniently ignores the most recent survey that specifically addressed the policy on gay Scouts to cite an older survey with less supportive results. Still, trying to argue a “moral” point from a claim of popularity compromises what moral integrity the position even has.
It’s unclear if On My Honor represents anybody other than its founder, John Stemberger. Nevertheless, other anti-gay organizations like the Family Research Council are supporting his efforts. Through this open letter, he has shown not only a lack of understanding but a significant antipathy for the gay community.
h/t: Think Progress LGBT
Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones went on a rambling, transphobic rant during his radio show, warning that protecting the rights of transgender people will cause them to start “vomiting and crapping all over the place.”
During the April 30 edition of his radio show, Jones launched a screed against the “globalist mafia,” which he blamed for efforts to reduce discrimination against transgender people. After claiming that he isn’t bothered by transgender people - but that their “fake rights” don’t exist - Jones warned that “transvestites” would “throw up all over the walls” in public bathrooms. He continued by peddling a number of outrageous, damaging stereotypes about transgender people.
Fox News contributor and self-identified “comedian” Steven Crowder published a transphobic FoxNews.com column smearing a transgender Mixed Martial Arts fighter by repeatedly referring to her as a male and incorrectly accusing her of having an unfair advantage over her opponents as a result of “being a man.”
In a March 20 FoxNews.com column, Crowder railed against transgender MMA fighter Fallon Fox, repeatedly depicting her as a male who’s interested in “beating up women”:
Let me paint you a picture: your daughter is playing a contact sport. Say, football or hockey. She’s gone from being your little girl to becoming a beautiful young woman. Opposite her on the field (or ice), is somebody who once was a man, until he decided that he didn’t feel like being one anymore.
[…]
Enter Fallon Fox, a male-to-female transgendered person, who has now decided to make a living by beating up women.
[…]
Unless you were born and raised a woman, you don’t go around hitting chicks.
Crowder’s insistence on referring to Fox as a male is clearly meant to be derogatory. Mentally, physically, and legally, Fox is considered a woman. Given she also self-identifies as a woman, Crowder is violating basic journalistic standards by failing to identify a transgender person by his or her stated gender.
Crowder is unqualified to be making statements about the physical characteristics of a transgender woman.
According to experts who have looked at Fox’s case, Fox is unlikely to experience any significant physical damage over her female opponents.
And James McDonald at Bleacher Report recently noted that much of the criticism about Fox’s alleged physical advantage has been based on bias and ignorance, not real medical expertise.
This clearly seems to be the case with Crowder, who has no basis in his column for blindly insisting “she’s a man!” Like his fellow Fox News contributor Dr. Keith Ablow who regularly misinforms about LGBT issues, Crowder is more interested in mocking and stigmatizing transgender people than doing actual research about the subject he’s commenting on.
h/t: MMFA
Last month, the City Council of Phoenix, Arizona passed sweeping nondiscrimination protections, ensuring that people have equal access to employment, housing, and public accommodations regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity. One state lawmaker, Rep. John Kavanagh (R) is not pleased that transgender people will be protected when using the correct bathroom, and so he has introduced a new bill to ban them from doing just that.
Kavanagh gutted a Senate Bill about a Massage Therapy Board to use as a shell for his new amendment, which prohibits a person from entering a “public restroom, bathroom, shower, bath, dressing room, or locker room” if the sex designation of that facility does not match the individual’s birth certificate. He defended his “show your papers to pee” bill in an interview with 12 News Phoenix:
KAVANAGH: The city of Phoenix has crafted a bill that allows people to define their sex by what they think in their head. If you’re a male, you don’t go into a female shower or locker room, or vice versa. It also raises the specter of people who want to go into those opposite sex facilities not because they’re transgender, but because they’re weird.
Violating this law would constitute “disorderly conduct” and could be prosecuted as a class 1 misdemeanor. The bill describes itself as “an emergency measure that is necessary to preserve the public peace, health or safety and is operative immediately as provided by law.”
The Massachusetts Department of Education recently issued a comprehensive set of guidelines for respecting transgender youth in schools, including using the names and pronouns they’ve chosen for themselves and allowing them to use the appropriate restrooms. Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly is not happy about it, and in an epic rant captured by Equality Matters, complained to Monica Crowley and Alan Colmes that the policy violates parents’ rights. His bloviating was rife with ignorant stereotypes about what it even means to be trans — including jokes about name changes — and he offered no compassion whatsoever for the actual experience of trans youth:
From the 02.26.2013 edition of FNC’s The O’Reilly Factor:COLMES: There has to be some confidentiality. Some students don’t feel comfortable talking to their parents about issues like this. This isn’t as if you wake up some day and Jane says, “Call me John,” or vice versa. […]
O’REILLY: The parents should be shut out of this whole process? They shouldn’t know anything that’s going on?… Here’s how insane you are and this whole thing is, and this is truly madness, ladies and gentlemen.You’re telling me that a kid can go to a public school in Massachusetts, immediately upon entering the school take off the kid’s shirt and put on a dress, alright, go to the girls’ room when he’s a boy, and then change his name from John to Tiffany, and then after school, put the shirt back on, go home, and he’s still John. […]
COLMES: Sometimes a child needs the ability to have a confidential conversation with someone not in the family.
O’REILLY: There’s a difference between a conversation and a lifestyle. That’s such a violation of parental rights by the state of Massachusetts. It’s off the chart violation.
The basic goal of these guidelines is to protect trans students, but O’Reilly makes it clear he doesn’t know the first thing about them.
h/t: MMFA
Following outreach from GLAAD, ESPN980 in Washington D.C. announced today that it has suspended Steve Czaban and Andy Pollin, hosts of the “Sports Reporters” show, over a segment they ran last week in which the pair made fun of transgender college basketball player Gabrielle Ludwig.
We have been working with Gabby and Mission College, and she is nothing short of extraordinary, certainly undeserving of the ridicule she received last week. We are very hopeful that Czaban and Pollin will return to the air with a greater understanding of the impact that their words can have, the power their platform provides, and the breadth of their listenership - which they now know includes many lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people and allies.
From the 12.06.2012 edition of WTEM’s The Sports Reporters:
h/t: GLAAD
Fox News’ Dr. Keith Ablow is a strong advocate for plastic surgery as a means to improve a person’s self-esteem and self-image, so long as that person isn’t transgender.
During the October 3 edition of Fox & Friends First, co-host Ainsley Earhardt asked Ablow for his thoughts on a viewer who was considering getting plastering surgery for her nose. Ablow, a psychiatristwho is a member of Fox’s “Medical A-Team,” called the woman “nuts” for hesitating to undergo the procedure, adding:
From the 10.03.2012 edition of FNC’s Fox and Friends First:
ABLOW: You know why she’s crazy? Because she hasn’t done it. Look, she’s looking in the mirror for thirty minutes, “I don’t think I like this, that.” Go! Get a plastic surgeon. Take the leap because I wonder what else in this woman’s life she hasn’t been willing to do even though she knows she wants to.
EARHARDT: In your experience, people who get the plastic surgery, are they usually happy with it?
ABLOW: Usually. I mean, I think plastic surgery gets a bad rap because the bottom line is it helps a lot of people feel better about themselves. What’s so terrible? It’s not a terrible thing. Go, get the nose job.
Ablow’s ardent support for cosmetic plastic surgery is in stark contrast to his stance on transgender people pursuing gender reassignment surgery in order to feel comfortable with their bodies. Last year, he criticized transgender people who “grotesquely amputate” their body parts, writing:
[E]ncouraging the choosing of gender identity, rather than suggesting our children become comfortable with the ones that they got at birth, can throw our species into real psychological turmoil—not to mention crowding operating rooms with procedures to grotesquely amputate body parts[.] Why not make race the next frontier? What would be so wrong with people deciding to tattoo themselves dark brown and claim African-American heritage? Why not bleach the skin of others so they can playact as Caucasians?
Why should we hold dear anything with which we were born? What’s the benefit of non-fiction over fiction? [emphasis added]
Got that? People who don’t like their noses should pursue plastic surgery, but people with intense gender dysphoria – a condition marked by strong desires to be of the other gender – should just learn to deal with it.
h/t: Equality Matters
“The Office of Human Rights transgender and gender identity non-discrimination campaign will appear throughout DC in Fall and Winter of 2012. The campaign will feature five transgender or gender non-conforming people in a series of five ads. The campaign aims to increase understanding of the community, reduce discriminatory incidents in DC and increase reporting of discrimination when it happens.”
just saw this on facebook https://www.facebook.com/DCOHR
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(via texarshead)
In the new issue of Rolling Stone, Tom Gabel goes public with her life-long struggle with body dysphoria, her transgender status and her desire to live life as a woman.
Gabel, who will be known as Laura Jane Grace, makes the admissions in a feature in the magazine, which hits newsstands on Friday and details the long road she took to get to this point; from her first childhood realizations that she was uncomfortable in her male body — she has early memories of watching Madonna on TV and fantasizing about being her, and says she played with Barbies — to her teenage years in Florida, where she kept her secret hidden and felt ashamed, telling writer Josh Eells that she would often pray to God, asking, “Dear God, when I wake up, I want a female body.”
Gabel said that she took inspiration from a transgender Against Me! fan named January Hunt — the feature opens with the two meeting in New York City — to finally begin transitioning from male to female, and has begun the process by undergoing electrolysis treatments (she’ll also soon begin taking hormones). She says she plans on living life as Laura for a full year before thinking about having sexual-reassignment surgery, and that she’s given up drinking alcohol, because she wants to be totally present for the transition process.
“I don’t want to feel like, ‘This is an uncomfortable situation, I’ll have a couple drinks,’ ” she said. “I want to meet it head-on.”
Submitted by H:
Jennifer Braly, a transgender woman, has given over thirty lectures in psychology classes at University of Arkansas Fort Smith about gender identity disorders. On Wednesday, April 18, my professor announced to her classes that Jennifer would be a guest…
Much has unfolded in the day since the “Bathroom Harassment Act” was first introduced in the Tennessee legislature, a bill that would fine transgender people $50 for using bathrooms and dressing rooms.
First, state Sen. Bo Watson (R) has withdrawn his version of the bill. He had introduced it as a courtesy to state Rep. Richard Floyd (R), who represents the same region of Tennessee. In a statement to ThinkProgress, Watson’s communications director explained that “Sen. Watson concluded that there are far more pressing issues facing the state of Tennessee at this time.”
Floyd now stands alone as the sponsor of the bill (HB 2279), which he defended yesterday using incredibly transphobic rhetoric. In no uncertain terms, he explained that he would resort to violence if he ever encountered someone transgender in a dressing room:
FLOYD: I believe if I was standing at a dressing room and my wife or one of my daughters was in the dressing room and a man tried to go in there — I don’t care if he thinks he’s a woman and tries on clothes with them in there — I’d just try to stomp a mudhole in him and then stomp him dry.
Don’t ask me to adjust to their perverted way of thinking and put my family at risk. We cannot continue to let these people dominate how society acts and reacts. Now if somebody thinks he’s a woman and he’s a man and wants to try on women’s clothes, let him take them into the men’s bathroom or dressing room.
This bill is nothing short of an outright attack on transgender people, and Floyd’s comments make it clear he lacks any understanding or compassion for the trans community. Enforcement of this bill could lead to ID checks in public restrooms and would be devastatingly stigmatizing, especially considering Tennessee offers no option for individuals to change their birth certificate gender markers. Even individuals passing through one of Tennessee’s airports or bus stops could be targeted for these fines, just for being transgender.
