Helen Boyd Kramer's journal on gender and stuff
politics, both trans & otherwise
I’m watching the live feed of the Largo City Council hearings, starting at 8:30 PM, where citizens are getting a chance to speak up about the firing of Steve Stanton.
(12:05 AM) Dammit dammit dammit. Steve Stanton has lost the job.
(Read below the break for the whole night’s blogging & commentary.)
The good news is that Louise Slaughter (D, NY) reintroduced the Prevention First Act:
“I am proud to reintroduce this bill which serves as an innovative and comprehensive approach to protecting women’s reproductive health, decreasing the spread of STDs, and reducing the number of unintended pregnancies,” Rep. Slaughter said of the bill in a Senate press release. “If we want to reduce the number of abortions in this country, the methodology is clear — empower women to prevent unintended pregnancies through education and access to contraception.”
Sounds reasonable, but considering yesterday’s news, I’m going to guess it won’t pass. There really are some people in this country who think the only answer is abstinence.
More good news during Women’s History Month: the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals just found that Union Pacific’s health insurance plan – which includes no contraception or pregnancy planning coverage – is not discrimination based on Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination based on gender.
The logic was that the health insurance plan doesn’t cover condoms, either, so it’s not discriminatory not to cover anything for women.
But, duh, MEN CAN’T GET PREGNANT.
US Judge Kermit Bye, the lone dissenter, objected to this logic because Union Pacific’s contraception policy only affects preventative care for women. Because men cannot become pregnant, it makes sense that the health care plan does not cover pregnancy prevention for men. Therefore, Judge Bye found that while the policy might be “officially gender neutral,” it is still discriminatory, according to the Associated Press.
But here’s the real kicker: the Union Pacific plan does cover Rogaine and Viagra.
So the guys have health insurance for their full heads of hair and hard dicks, because you know, those are important and vital medical concerns, but the women of UP can’t take birth control to prevent pregnancy, because, you know, that’s a minor matter and hardly important to a woman who works for a living.
If this is Women’s History Month, then I suppose we all should have worn orange on St. Patrick’s Day.
South Carolina wants women who are considering an abortion to view the ultrasound first.
I say okay if women who aren’t considering abortion have to take tours of foster care and chat with Child Services first, too, then have their finances and future earnings analyzed by a forensic accountant, and their support network (extended family, friends, etc.) evaluated for soundness.
Ditto for the father. (Who?)
Maybe a short spiel on population control and global carrying capacity might be in order, too.
I was saying to friends last night that I expected the problem with Garrison Keillor’s piece to have been an inside/outside problem: that Keillor felt “inside” enough to joke about gay stereotypes, but forgot that he’s actually “outside,” since he’s heterosexual, & ended up at “laughing at” instead of “laughing with” as he intended.
Which it turns out is the case, according to his apology.
More important, I think, is that the upset Dan Savage has also reported that John McCain doesn’t know if condoms help prevent the spread of HIV or not.
But at least Clinton & Obama have actually come out & said homosexuality isn’t immoral. Whew. Now there’s a strong stand. And we have to hear this ‘implied but not spoken’ or ‘spoken and to be inferred’ kind of thing for how many more years? Ugh.
Until the AOH figure out they should let gay folks march in the St. Patrick’s Day parade, I decided I’d post the biography of an Irish person who happens to be gay on St. Patrick’s Day, instead, because it’s so embarrassing to be both (a little) Irish & Catholic with these numbnuts behaving like it’s the Middle Ages.
So who better to start with than Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde, the Irish writer who was the bon vivant & society wit and who was eventually imprisoned for being homosexual. His most famous works are The Ballad of Reading Gaol, The Importance of Being Earnest, and The Picture of Dorian Gray Despite his decline after jail, however, he maintained his sense of humor: just a month before his death he is quoted as saying, “My wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. One or other of us has got to go.”
Read Garrison Keillor’s piece in Salon about marriage & family. Then read Dan Savage’s response to Garrison Keillor’s piece in Salon about marriage & family, which he abruptly titled Fuck Garrison Keillor.
& Then let me say: the next time a show like Will & Grace comes on the air. & the media can’t stop creaming in their pants over what a great leap forward it is, maybe, just maybe, we can think twice about the painful stereotypes such a great leap forward confirms in the American consciousness.
It’s not all Will & Grace’s fault, of course, not at all. Ignorance is a great big beast in this country, and apparently it comes in both red AND blue. Garrison Keillor needs to attend Family Week in P-Town this year, I think.
Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle told the Feds to keep their money if the only education it can fund is abstinence-only.
Wisconsin has received the federal funding since 1997, but new guidelines tying the money to abstinence-only education programs were implemented this year. These guidelines include that students be taught that sexual activity outside of marriage could have harmful physical and psychological effects and that students receive no information about contraception or sexually transmitted diseases and infections.
How much does he rock?!
Four other states have already rejected this strings-attached financing: California, Maine, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
The Office of Women’s Health – which researches funding on women’s medical issues such as menopause, birth control, pregnancy & the like – was allocated $4 million. $2.8 million of that is already spent or appropriated, and the final $1.2 million won’t be coming at all.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) plans to withhold 30 percent of the funding allocated for the Office of Women’s Health in 2007, an unnamed, high level official told the Washington Post.
The source isn’t allowed to speak publicly about it and remained unnamed.
Um, isn’t that our money?! As taxpayers? Shouldn’t we at least know who made this decision and why? This type of mumblefuck is exactly why we need more women in government. Sure we’re 51%, but with nothing close to that in terms of representation. I guess this is the way the Feds decided to celebrate Women’s History Month: thanks, guys.
From the Feminist Daily News:
Adding to the chorus of women leaders demanding that President Bush retreat from the possibility of war against Iran, retired Army Reserves Colonel and former high-ranking diplomat Mary Ann Wright asked military personnel to refuse potentially imminent orders to attack Iran.
More after the break. Continue reading “Cool Women: Mary Ann Wright”