Category: politics & causes

politics, both trans & otherwise

Posted on

For Veterans’ Day, Equality Please

This message just came in from AVER (American Veterans for Equal Rights) and TAVA (Transgender American Veterans’ Association):

American Veterans For Equal Rights president Danny Ingram and Transgender American Veterans Association president Monica Helms have made a joint YouTube video appeal to President Obama and Congress to Lift the Ban on LGBT military service by repealing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.

On this Veterans’ Day, as President Obama considers sending more patriotic American troops to Afghanistan, AVER and TAVA remind the President of his campaign promise to repeal DADT.

Go to YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QkRcAcya30

Send the link to others and your Congressional reps.

Danny Ingram
President AVER

Monica Helms
President TAVA

Thank you, veterans, for your service.

Posted on

11/9

It’s been 20 years since the Berlin Wall came down. (20 YEARS. damn.)

I’d embed the Jesus Jones video of the song “Right Here, Right Now” but EMI doesn’t allow it. Here’s the link, though, so you can go watch it. My friend Lara once told me that no song had better summed up someone’s personality; she was talking about mine. Yeah.

Just watching that, reading the article too, makes me wonder if it’s even possible to get out from under the nihilism anymore. I still hope so., and have hoped so for more than these 20 years.

Posted on

Happy Warrior

This news and research won’t be a surprise to any of you who are activists and otherwise politically engaged, but it might be to some who aren’t:

At least if recent research is to be believed, political activism, no matter the cause, seems to make people happy – even if they don’t win an election or triumph in a ballot initiative. Psychologists curious about what fuels human happiness have looked at political engagement and political activism, and they’ve found that it provides people with a sense of empowerment, of community, of freedom, and of transcendence. Political activists, in other words, are all happy warriors.

(Of course this doesn’t mention how self-selecting this might be, either.)

Posted on

Election Daze

We’re still waiting on Maine and Washington as I get ready for bed. Washington state will expand the rights of domestic partners, but it looks like Maine will reject their same sex marriage law.

I am sick to death of people being able to vote on my marriage, my citizenship, my humanity.

I want the right to bring every heterosexual couple to the steps of the courthouse in Maine and have the rest of us vote on whether they should or can be married.

This is bullshit. It’s embarassing as an American that we are so far behind most of Europe on civil rights. We used to take the lead – with suffrage, with child labor, with all sorts of shit. And now… it’s just embarassing.

I want freedom from their religion, their stupidity, & their prejudice.

I have been on both sides of this issues – having been a legally married heterosexual, and in some ways, still being that – and it makes me fucking sick that people who don’t know me get to decide if I get to be married, and whether my legal marriage will be recognized or not.

I’m just fucking fed up.

I’m tired of spending Election Days worrying about my friends, their spouses, their families, their kids.

When do we get to vote on whether heterosexual marriage is acceptable? When do we get to apply some arbitrary and hypocrital set of moral standards to everyone else’s relationships?

Posted on

Victory in Kalamazoo

Woohoo! Kalamazoo Michigan got it’s non-discrimination ordinance! One down, two to go! Here’s One Kalamazoo’s press release:

ONE KALAMAZOO DECLARES VICTORY IN BALLOT FIGHT
Kalamazoo residents approve nondiscrimination ordinance


“Our campaign started with a very basic idea, and today voters confirmed that we are One Kalamazoo,” said Campaign Manager, Jon Hoadley.

With only absentee ballots outstanding, 65 percent of Kalamazoo voters have approved Ordinance 1856 by a vote of 6,463 to 3,527, adding protections for gay and transgender people to the city’s nondiscrimination ordinance.  This margin is larger than the number of outstanding absentee ballots that are currently being counted. Continue reading “Victory in Kalamazoo”

Posted on

Vote!

We already voted in the NYC election, via absentee ballot, but for most of you, go out & vote!

Especially if you’re in Maine, Washington state or Kalamazoo, MI.

Homophobes please stay home. Really. There’s nothing important to vote on today.

Posted on

Obama on Passage of Hate Crimes Law

“But we sense where such cruelty begins: the moment we fail to see in another our common humanity — the very moment when we fail to recognize in a person the same fears and hopes, the same passions and imperfections, the same dreams that we all share.” – President Barack Obama, 10/28/09

(Transcript via HRC)

Posted on

Hate Crimes Bill Signed Into Law

From NCTE:

President Obama has just signed into law the very first protections for transgender people in US history: The Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act.

“This is a powerful day as the United States government, for the first time, stands up and declares that violence against transgender people is wrong and will not be tolerated in our country,” stated Mara Keisling, the Executive Director of the National Center for Transgender Equality. “Every day transgender people live with the reality and the threat of personal violence, simply because of who they are. This must end and it must end now. The new law provides for some vital first steps in preventing these terrible crimes as well as addressing them when they occur. At NCTE, we are dedicating this day to all those who have been victims of hate-motivated violence as well as recommitting ourselves to ending the epidemic of hate that continues to damage our communities and our country.”

Mara will be present at the White House this afternoon when President Obama offers commemorative remarks to mark this historic moment.

The Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, which adds sexual orientation, gender identity, gender and disability to existing law, will have a number of positive impacts for transgender people:

  • It will help educate law enforcement about the frequent hate violence against transgender people and the need to prevent and appropriately address it;
  • It will help provide federal expertise and resources when they are needed to overcome a lack of resources or the willful inaction on the part of local and/or state law enforcement;
  • It will help educate the public that violence against anyone, including transgender people, is unacceptable and illegal.

Most importantly, this law marks a turning point for the federal government, by including positive protections for transgender people and taking seriously the need to address the discrimination that we face.