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Lambda Legal’s Trans Rights Program

According to their website:

“Lambda Legal has a strong commitment to litigation and public education around issues of gender identity and gender expression, and I look forward to advancing and expanding the scope of the organization’s work,” said Dru Levasseur, Transgender Rights Project Director. “We are excited to have the “Know Your Rights: Transgender” resource available online to help transgender people understand their rights and make sure they are respected. Based on the calls to our Legal Help Desk, we know that transgender people—whether they are being harassed by the police or discriminated against at work—need to be able to access information about their rights and the laws in place to protect them, as quickly as possible. This new mobile-friendly resource will give transgender people across the country critical information at their fingertips.”

Impressive, thorough, well-organized, good information. The categories include identity documents, restroom rights, trans youth, trans seniors, trans marriage and parents, health care, and transphobic violence. What a fantastic new resource.

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Williams on Trans

Here’s a brief meditation on the legal issues ignited by transgender identities by none other than Patricia Williams. I liked this in particular:

Transgender identities challenge us to think about the morphisms of “sex” and “gender,” “woman” and “man,” “real” and “not real.” This is a hot topic in academic circles: for example, attempting to disambiguate the notion of “identity” as a matter of legal subjectivity, when, say, a man with a heap of warrants is finally arrested—but by the time the police catch up, he has become a she, and in the name of that transformation asserts as a defense that “he” was a different person. It’s easy to dismiss this sort of discussion as funny or unimportant, but I think it’s necessary, not merely because it directly affects the lives of the transgendered but because it tests and expands the thinking of those of us who are not transgendered yet whose collective responses shape the social environment.

Do read the whole of it.