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Update from NCTE re: Mara Keisling’s Arrest in NC

4/26: Mara has been released and is safe.

Bail is set at $1k. Donate if you can.

Thanks to everyone who has expressed support for Mara Keisling, who was arrested earlier this evening while protesting ?#?HB2?. We’ve been told that she has been treated respectfully, and that she even conducted an impromptu training for the detention center staff around how to treat trans people who have been arrested.

Mara’s bail has been set at $1,000, and we would appreciate any donations to NCTE to help us continue to ?#?FlushDiscrimination? in North Carolina and across the whole nation: http://www.flushdiscrimination.org/

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Fair Wisconsin T*LI Conference, Leadership Conference, & Gala

fair wisconsin conference 2014This past weekend, Fair Wisconsin hosted its first ever Trans Leadership Institute – a full day of workshops based around trans issues. In addition, we hosted the 3rd annual LGBTQ+ Leadership Conference & Gala. Many of you donated so that I could bring people who couldn’t otherwise afford to go, and I wanted to thank all of you who supported this effort.

Kate Bornstein, as many of you already know, couldn’t be there. Kylar Broadus spoke instead, & Mara Keisling was in attendance. It was a pleasure to get to do a workshop with her, where we talked about the nature of identity and advocacy. It was good stuff, and people seemed to like it, and we’re thinking of doing it again elsewhere.

Mostly I wanted to thank all of you who contributed. The photo is me, of course, making some emphatic point about the nominative case in the use of gender neutral pronouns.  Or I was saying something about binaries, microaggressions, or cis privilege. Something like that, anyway.

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Mara Keisling Comes to Appleton

She’ll be coming here to Lawrence University in 8 days, that is, & I’m very please that LU’s Gender Studies program and Government department, as well as the Fox Valley INCLUDE initiative AND the LU student group GLOW are all helping co-sponsor.

Mara is one of my favorite people, an amazing speaker, funny, wonky, and deeply compassionate.

Here’s the FB event page, and more info:

Thursday, April 11th
7PM

Changing Minds, Changing Policy: Lessons from a DC Activist – NCTE Executive Director Mara Keisling will discuss creating alliances in order to achieve policy and legislative changes that benefit marginalized communities.

This event is free and open to the public, so please, invite anyone who may be interested.

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ENDA Again

Gay City News has an interesting article on the possibility of ENDA being passed be Executive Order. Mara Keisling of NCTE gets cranky about it, & rightfully so. But it’s an interesting idea, & might especially be interesting to those of you who like somewhat obscure US history:

Nan Hunter, the associate dean for graduate programs at Georgetown Law School who is also the legal scholarship director at the Williams Institute, explained that the president’s authority to issue such an order derives not from existing nondiscrimination law, but rather from the Federal Procurement Act, in his role, essentially, as “the CEO” of the US government. Precedent for such an exercise of power dates back 70 years –– more than two decades prior to the 1964 Civil Rights Act –– to a Franklin D. Roosevelt order regarding racial nondiscrimination by Defense Department contractors as the nation ramped up for World War II.

One key factor about such executive orders –– as distinct from nondiscrimination laws –– is that they do not create a private right of civil action for bias victims. Enforcement is carried out by the Labor Department’s Office of Contract Compliance, which she said has been an effective agent for civil rights protections under administrations friendly to the underlying goal. Regardless of a particular president’s enforcement diligence, however, most government contractors take seriously their obligations under existing orders and regulations, Hunter said.

Still, nothing has happened yet, & it looks like it won’t until after Election Day.