Category: news

News

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Beyond the Law

A trans woman is leaving her job as a librarian despite discrimination protections. Jillian Todd-Weiss comments on her blog:

“Philadelphia has an ordinance prohibiting gender identity discrimination, as do a number of cities in Pennsylvania, some major corporations have gender identity EEO policies, and the state is considering legislation to prohibit discrimination on the basis of gender identity. There is obviously a lot of good-will in Pennsylvania for employment non-discrimination. But it doesn’t necessarily penetrate to the ordinary transgender person. “

Which leads me to conclude that the legislation or even inclusion in EEO policies will not fix it all: education is still absolutely necessary and required. The laws are no good if no one bothers to enforce them, after all, & authorities will not enforce them if they are prejudiced against trans people themselves.

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On The Road for Keroack

The Deputy Assistant Secretary for HHS’ Office of Population Affairs, Eric Keroack, has resigned. & There was much rejoicing because he was not just anti-choice, but anti-contraception.

This Bush government is really just insane. Honestly: putting someone who is against even contraception in charge of the Office of Population Affairs is like putting a wife-beater in charge of the Office of Domestic Violence.

But, that’s one nightmare over.

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Adding Insult to Injury

Detroit police have decided to stop asking questions about the death of Andrew Anthos, who died after being beaten by a homophobe. Why? They’ve ruled the man’s arthritic neck was what killed him, not the blow that may have aggravated that arthritis.

Anthos’ cousin is continuing to pursue the case because no one has answered how the man ended up in the hospital with a 2″ scar on his neck, and while she is okay with them disputing him having died of the blow, she insists that he was attacked and that the attack was a hate crime. The Triangle Foundation, an LGBT group, have offered $5000 to anyone who can step forward with more information.

But the really pathetic thing is that the American Family Association of Michigan called on the Detroit police to look into the “filing of a false police report” concerning this incident. If any of us have any doubts, these folks not only want to prevent LGBT folks from being protected from discrimination and hate crimes, but they want to prevent our families from finding justice. Hateful.

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Blinding Paperwork

A Polish woman with a worsening eye condition needed to get an abortion after being warned by her doctor that she might go blind if she didn’t abort. Unfortunately for her, Poland requires written authorization for an abortion – which it only allows in cases such as hers, where the women’s health is at risk as a result of pregnancy – and she couldn’t get the doctor’s note. She instead carried to term and delivered the baby and her vision, as predicted, got worse – so much so she was declared legally disabled.

She did win $50k from the Polish government after the European Court of Appeals ruled in her favor, but I read this as a cautionary tale: making it too difficult for a woman to get an abortion results in unnecessary tragedy.

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Church & State

Bad policy is sometimes based not on science, but on belief:

. . . the Pentagon’s top general, Marine Gen. Peter Pace, said that homosexual acts are immoral and should not be condoned by allowing gays to serve in the military. Then . . . Rev. R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, said that if homosexuality were genetic, it would still be evil and should be treated prenatally.

& It’s on geniuses like these that we base the “don’t ask / don’t tell” policy, even if there is no good evidence that homosexuals make bad soldiers, and conversely, there’s plenty of evidence that sometimes male heterosexual soldiers suck: one third of female soldiers report rape or attempted rape. So no matter what Mohler thinks, is morality really the reason we don’t let (out) gays serve? Of course not.

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Homophobic Coach Resigns

Rene Portland, coach of the Lady Lions basketball team at Penn State, resigned – some say over allegations that she was anti-lesbian. A former player, Jennifer Harris, brought the charges after Portland kicked her off the team for not dressing in more feminine ways.

I have to say I find the whole situation kind of confusing: the idea of a women’s basketball coach being homophobic, I mean. In my experience, lesbians like & play sports at least as much, if not more, than heterosexual girls do. Barring half of your potential players from your team seems counterintuitive, though her record of course proves she is a good coach.

Talent, of course, is no excuse for shitty behavior, though I do find it interesting that this situation came to a head only now – after a couple of bad seasons for the team.