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NYS GENDA Call-In Day is TODAY!

The Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act (GENDA) has been passed by the Assembly and has enough support to be passed by the Senate. Get on the phone and call the lead Senate sponsor Tom Duane and your Senator to tell them that you want them to bring GENDA to the Senate floor and pass it. It is vital that they hear from you.
You can reach Senator Tom Duane at (518) 455-2451 and you can find your State Senator’s Albany phone number here.
GENDA would amend the state’s human rights law to include anti-discrimination protections based upon gender identity and expression, providing crucial civil rights protections for transgender New Yorkers by banning discrimination in housing, employment, credit, public accommodations, and other areas of everyday life.
With more than half of the Senators indicating their support for GENDA, we know that we have enough votes to get it passed in the Senate if it comes to the floor for a vote. So now is the time to call Senator Duane and your State Senator!
Talking Points:

  1. Reach Tom Duane at (518) 455-2451 and find your Senator’s Albany phone number here. Call their offices on Wednesday to tell them that the time is now to end discrimination against transgender New Yorkers. Remember to give them the number of the GENDA bill (S.2406).
  2. Ask your Senator to vote for GENDA, and ask lead Senate Sponsor Tom Duane to bring the bill to the floor for a vote now.
  3. Tell them about the broad support for GENDA statewide, including:
  • 78% of New York voters
  • Unions representing 2.1 million working New Yorkers
  • 27 Fortune 500 companies based in cities like Rochester, Corning, New York City and White Plains.
  • 344 clergy and lay leaders, representing over 20 different denominations

Do it! Don’t just Twitter it!

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NYS Needs GENDA (& Your Help)

NY residents: Sign up for the STATEWIDE CALL-IN DAY FOR TRANSGENDER EQUALITY:

We need your help pass the Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act (GENDA), a bill that would make it illegal in New York State to fire someone, evict them, or deny credit or admission to school solely based on their gender expression.

On April 21st, 2009 the NYS Assembly passed the GENDA bill for the second time, 97-38.

Now the NYS Senate needs to hear from voices all across NYS that GENDA matters and needs to come to the floor for a vote before the end of session on June 21st. If you sign up, you will be notified of when you need to call your senators.

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NYS Same Sex Senate Vote

Fivethirtyeight.com has done a breakdown of the possible same sex marriage vote for the NY Senate. Basically, there are probably 20 definites, & then a bunch of solid Nos, & then a bunch of undecideds. If your rep is on this list, CALL HIM OR HER RIGHT AWAY.

Even if these people aren’t your reps, you should call them & tell them to vote YES & stop embarassing the good residents of NYS by being so ass-backwards, already.


UNDECIDED, LEANING YES (1)
55. James Alesi, R-Upstate (East Rochester) link

UNDECIDED OR UNKNOWN (11)
1. Kenneth LaValle, R-Long Island (Port Jefferson) link
2. John J. Flanagan, R-Long Island (East Northport) link
3. Brian X. Foley, D-Long Island (Blue Point) link
4. Owen H. Johnson, R-Long Island (West Babylon) link
8. Charles Fuschillo, R-Long Island (Merrick) link
13. Hiram Monserrate, D-NYC (Jackson Heights) link
15. Joseph Addabbo, Jr., D-NYC (Ozone Park) link
19. John Sampson, D-NYC (Brooklyn) link
27. Carl Kruger, D-NYC (Brooklyn) link
36. Ruth Hassell-Thompson, D-Westchester (Williamsbridge) link
40. Vincent Leibell, R-Westchester (Patterson) link

UNDECIDED, LEANING NO (5)
6. Kemp Hannon, R-Long Island (Garden City) link
24. Andrew Lanza, R-NYC (Staten Island) link
45. Betty Little, R-Upstate (Queensbury) (conflicting reports suggest opposition and that she’s ‘within reach’)
49. David Valesky, D-Upstate (Oneida) (officially undecided; constituent e-mail hints at opposition)
57. Catharine Young, R-Upstate (Olean) link

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Word A Day

I love my Word A Day calendar. You rip off a page every day & get a new word — they’re not often new to me, but my vocabulary has definitely improved since I got into this habit. What I do is recycle pages of words I already use regularly AND words that I don’t think I’ll ever use or are too silly or specialized.

The others I leave in a stack on my desk and whenever I’m waiting – for a download, an upload, or for a game to load – I read them over & write sentences using them in my head.

Here’s some recent favorites:

  1. blandish – to coax with flattery
  2. abusage – improper use of words
  3. tyro – novice
  4. henotheism – worship of one god without disbelief in others
  5. deliquesce – to become fluid or soft with aging, as in mushrooms

An undgrad and gender studies tyro’s abusage was an attempt to blandish me into giving him a perfect grade on his paper, but instead I corrected him by explaining it’s nauseated, not nauseous.

(10 points to anyone who can use henotheism and deliquesce in one sentence that actually makes sense!)

I know you can get them emailed to you, but I kind of love the flash cards feeling of the word-per-page design.

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Best of Cramps / Happy Valentine

Since people have asked, here’s a few of the best Cramps songs… okay, my favorites. & The last one is just – well, why not?

Get a playlist!

I have to dedicate the 4th song to my dad. He was driving me somewhere – probably to a shop called Slipped Disc where I bought a ton of music when I was a teenager – and he was humming along with this track until he stopped and said, “is that really what they’re saying?” and promptly changed the station. (For the record, Slipped Disc sold all the great 80s punk & new wave I loved, including all the other crap that went with being a fan: calendars, buttons, patches, picture discs, t-shirts, books… all of that stuff. For anyone who’s been to Record Runner in the West Village, Slipped Disc was kinda like that. With a lot of metalheads.)

So Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone! Make yourself a cocktail, put on those big fuzzy slippers & dance to these tracks. Round out the evening by watching some godawful B-movie. Eat some cheese out of a can. Really, it’s good for you, once in a while.

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Congress Is Back

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:

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NYC HHC Report

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).

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Blogger Initiative

As many of you know, I was at the LGBT Bloggers’ Initiative this past weekend, feeling simultaneously like the new kid on the block and the old whore. Many of my fellow bloggers – I realized during a presentation on media access by Cathy Renna – are bloggers, only. It never occurred to me that being a blogger who was a published book author first was weird, but there I was.

Nevermind that for now. I met a smattering of lovely people who are active in the LGBT blogosphere, some of whom I knew before and some who I didn’t: Dana of Mombian, a whole bunch of the folks at Bilerico, including Bil, Serena, Irene, and Alex; some of the Pam’s House Blend crew, including Pam herself and Autumn Sandeen. Among other I ran into were Allyson Robinson at the HRC cocktail party on Friday night, Mara Keisling of NCTE on Saturday afternoon (at the infamous Mayflower Hotel), as well as Tahlib Disney-Britton of Freedom to Marry, James from gayagenda.com,  and Tobias Packer of Equality Florida.

Continue reading “Blogger Initiative”