Helen Boyd Kramer's journal on gender and stuff
Unofficial results from Gainesville are that the good citizens of the historic Florida town voted no to turning back the clock and getting rid of LGBTQ discrimination protections.
58% No on Amendment 1 (and 42% Yes) according to Mara Keisling of NCTE & Allyson Robinson of HRC.
Good news! Not only that, but the “keep crossdressed men out of bathrooms” schtick didn’t work. Go Equality Gainesville!
Pam’s House Blend reports that Mara Keisling is one of the many women who have been invited to participate in an announcement ceremony.
Mara Keisling, for those of you who don’t know, is a lesbian-identified trans woman who is also the executive director of NCTE.
(Toldja he was trans-inclusive.)
(Thanks to Pam & Diana in CT.)
A Peruvian television station was invited to a planned attack on a local prostitute who is a “travesti” – a MTF trans prostitute. It aired on television, and was later aired with a longer segment.
Blabbeando covered it, as did Queers United.
Note: prostitution is not illegal in Peru.
The NAACP has been one of our strongest allies in the fight against Proposition 8 in California. The national NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund (LDF) and the California branch of the NAACP joined other civil rights groups in filing a major brief before the California Supreme Court in support of equality, and LDF recently urged the California legislature to enact resolutions calling for the invalidation of Prop 8.
The NAACP is getting some push-back for these efforts. Now is the time for us to support them and show that coalition politics goes both ways. Please join me in expressing your support for their statement of equality to your local NAACP branch:
We are not alone in this fight. Let’s show that we know how to step up to the plate when others step up for us.
Transgender Legal Defense & Education Fund and PFLAG New York City invite you to Christine Jorgensen Reveals: A very special benefit performance supporting the work of Transgender Legal Defense & Education Fund and PFLAG New York City
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
7:00 PM to 8:30 PM
The Lion Theatre at Theatre Row, 410 West 42nd Street (Between 9th and 10th Avenues)
The Femme Fever Gala Ball will be held on April 18, 2009 from 8pm to 12am & has been compared to a prom-like event. Betty & I have been to a few Femme Fever events & Karen hosts a great party.
All the info you need is below the break. Continue reading “Femme Fever Gala Ball”
Allyson Robinson posted this message about Equality Florida’s fight for a gender-inclusive non-discrimination law in Gainesville, Florida on our message boards, & I thought it deserved a larger audience:
Many of you are aware of the fight brewing in Gainesville, Florida over their trans-inclusive non-discrimination law, passed by the city council last year. Gainesville’s non-discrimination ordinance had covered sexual orientation for years, but when gender identity was added last year, opposition was activated. The opposition group collected a huge number of signatures–over 10% of the projected voting population–to get the anti-discrimination ordinance placed on the ballot in a special election. That’s tremendous for this kind of municipal issue; more people signed the petition against these protections than voted for the mayor or any sitting city council member in recent elections.
Though the charter amendment the opposition group is pushing would eliminate protections for the whole LGBT community, their messaging is focusing on transgender people–the “bathroom diversion.” Their flyers state, in letters a inch tall, “KEEP MEN OUT OF WOMEN’S RESTROOMS.” As we’ve seen all over the country, and writ large in California last fall, this kind of fear-based messaging is very, very difficult to dislodge from voters’ minds. The special election is scheduled for March 24.
This fight has national significance. The “bathroom diversion” is quickly becoming our opposition’s weapon of choice. They used it successfully in Hamtramck, Michigan, it might have succeeded in Montgomery County, Maryland had the courts not intervened, it’s getting drug out in Kalamazoo, Michigan and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and it’s already being raised at the state level in places like Connecticut that are considering inclusive non-discrimination bills this year. We must show both our opponents and our supporters that we can consistently defeat this tactic. If we don’t, municipalities or states considering trans-inclusive non-discrimination laws may become gun-shy, preferring not to deal with costly ballot initiatives in response to pro-equality laws.
From the NCTE:
Today, January 6, Members of Congress raise their right hand and swear to uphold the Constitution as they begin the new legislative session.
Let’s make sure the first thing they hear about is the importance of an Employment Non-Discrimination Act that protects all lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.
Call the Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224 3121 and have them connect you to your Representative (based on your zip code). Tell them: “I am a constituent and I would like you to please tell Representative _______ that I strongly support the Employment Non-Discrimination Act that would ban discrimination against all lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.”
Then, call back and leave messages with your two Senators too!
Request an in-person meeting for you and other community members with your two Senators and your Representative (or their staffs) in their home district offices. You can call the district offices to request these meetings but they often want you to fax a meeting request. To find contact info for district offices, go to to www.senate.gov and www.house.gov.
Sample meeting request letters, and other talking points and resources for your meetings, are available in the following toolkits:
Congratulations to Diego Sanchez for his new appointment as Barney Frank’s senior policy advisor.
There are misgivings, of course, precisely because Sanchez has worked with HRC & crossed picket lines in SF to speak at an HRC dinner (when even the SF mayor wouldn’t).
(I’m going to agree with Courtney, who wondered aloud on the MHB forums, as to whether or not Frank will be comfortable sharing a bathroom with him.)
Betsy Gotsbaum, NY’s Public Advocate, has released a report (pdf) that recommends way to improve the LGBT population’s access to healthcare.
Among the recommendations:
• Require in-house LGBT sensitivity training for all HHC employees.
• Designate an LGBT liaison in each HHC facility.
• Establish, display, and enforce a zero-tolerance discrimination policy.
• Establish a review process to monitor progress.
Among the people quoted in the press release are Ray Carannante of CenterCARE and Michael Silverman of the Transgender Legal Defense & Education Fund (TLDEF).