Miami Beach just added language to their human relations ordinance in order to protect transgender residents from discrimination.
Paul Scott: Wasting Your Time
There’s a guy named Paul Scott who’s running for Secretary of State in Michigan. You know, that state that gets TB when the rest of the country has a cough.
I haven’t been flabbergasted for some time, but this hatefulness blew me away. In his opening bid to become Secretary of State, he lists four things he aims to do:
There are also policies that I will work to change:
- I will stand strong against illegal immigration by verifying a valid social security number before issuing anyone a driver’s license, an issue Representative Dave Agema has been pushing for 3 years.
- I will actively push to encrypt the traceable RFID chip in the enhanced driver’s license.
- I will make it a priority to ensure transgender individuals will not be allowed to change the sex on their driver’s license in any circumstance.
- I will work tirelessly to repeal the over $100 million dollar tax increase on drivers in the form of driver responsibility fees.
The third one, which I’ve put in bold, completely surprised me. I thought for a minute I was reading a parody & checked the page to make sure it wasn’t The Onion. On the one hand, I’m kind of blown away that the need for gender marker changes on ID is even being recognized as something transgender people need to do. On the other: really? Is blocking a transgender person’s right to change their gender marker a key issue?
Wow. Maybe his tag line should be “Vote for Paul Scott: He’ll Waste Everyone’s Time with Big Brother Bullshit.”
(h/t to Adrien and Paula, via FB)
“GenderQueer in the Midwest” Mini Documentary
I love JAC Stringer. Okay, there, I said it.
& Now you do too.
Check out the other stuff JAC does at www.midwestgenderqueer.com.
RIP Flo McGarrell
A Vermont artist who was also trans died in Haiti during the earthquake.
Our love & condolences to his parents, friends, & family.
RIP Dr. Maxwell Anderson
You might remember Maxwell Anderson as Robert Eads’ close friend in Southern Comfort, or maybe you’ve never heard of him, but he’s been a trans activist for a couple of decades, and was well-loved.
He died today after being diagnosed with brain cancer not very long ago.
His last words to his friends are here.
His last public talk – given at an Atlanta Rally this past June – is here.
From activist Monica Helms:
Please pass on your prayers for Max to Pastor Paul Turner, at: pastorpaul@gentlespirit.org, Stormie Marshall at: stormie@drmaxwellanderson.com or leave them as a comment on the video.
RIP Maxwell Anderson. You did good in this world, which is the best any of us can do. & Thank Robert for us, when you see him.
Conveyor Belt of Love?
I have no idea if anyone in the world watches the show Conveyor Belt of Love, but I did find this clip (& this blog post about it) interesting.
Scott Schofield, as he introduces himself, is Scott Turner Schofield, trans guy, activist, artist.
More interesting to me is the whole “geek hot” idea – I mean that it requires its own terminology. I didn’t know other people didn’t find geeks hot. When is smart not hot? Baffling. Once again, I discover that I have never done “straight woman” correctly.
Renault Trans-Friendly (& Trans Family Friendly!) Advert
Okay, this made me cry, really.
The world is changing. Slowly, but it is. I have met so many really cool kids – teenagers & adults, mostly – who are cool with their parents’ gender stuff that it is really nice to see this. That’s what made me cry; just seeing a presentation of all those cool KOTs (Kids of Trans) in any medium.
Not Just Amanda Simpson
From the “there goes the MTF end of things sucking all the air out of the room again” division: in fact there were two trans people appointed by the Obama administration in late November.
The difficulty arose because Simpson is a former NCTE Board member, & so they sent out a press release noting their former board member’s new job, which is what caused all the hullabaloo.
Who We Lost 2009
There are a lot of lists of who died last year, but I haven’t seen any specific to LGBTQ and feminist communities, so here goes:
- Mike Penner / Christine Daniels – transgender sports writer
- Michele La Freniere – transgender activist
- Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick = queer theorist
- Bea Arthur – gay icon/actor
- Dr. George Tiller – abortion doctor
- Virginia Prince – crossdressing pioneer
- Ted Kennedy – key legislator on LGBT rights
- Dottie Laing – crossdresser’s wife & out trans partner
Stars, all. Rest in peace.
Just Say Sorry, David Letterman
Ox Freeman of the Alabama Gender Alliance just posted the info from GLAAD about the stupid joke that was made on David Letterman about Amanda Simpson, and with it he commented that, “Trans people will not be safe from hate violence until it is safe to be attracted to us, to love us, and to regard us as human.”
He’s entirely right, of course, and it’s nice to have someone else articulate exactly why I do what I do.
Betty and I are both for trans people having more of a sense of humor, but we both agree: this joke is not even a little funny, exactly because this reaction to finding out a woman is trans is the same reaction that causes the heart-breaking violence trans people — and especially trans women — face.
As Allyson Robinson of HRC put it in an article by ABC News:
“Your skit affirmed and encouraged a prejudice against transgender Americans that keeps many from finding jobs, housing, and enjoying freedoms you and your writers take for granted every day,” HRC’s Allyson Robinson wrote in the letter.
Robinson said the punch line of the bit has “been used as a defense in nearly every hate crime perpetrated against transgender people that has come to trial.” She cited two cases in which individuals suspected of murdering transgender people claimed they did so in a rage after learning about their victims’ gender identity.
So now go to GLAAD.org and bug CBS, or do the same thing via change.org.