Thursday, June 09, 2016

Something That We Knew

We know that “bathroom issues” goes way beyond bathrooms, we face discrimination everyday and those who live on the margins have it much worst than the more affluent trans people. But all trans people live the reality that they are targets for injustices and violence.
New Criminal Justice Report Reminds Us That Transgender Discrimination Goes Beyond Bathrooms
Huffington Queer Voices
By Sarah McBride
June 9, 2016

Since North Carolina’s anti-transgender HB 2 law passed in March, arguments about where transgender people can use the bathroom have been at the forefront of national debate. Several other states have followed North Carolina’s lead and are attempting to restrict access to bathrooms for transgender people, and North Carolina’s law is now at the center of a legal battle between the state and federal government.

Access to public facilities like bathrooms is important for transgender people. But the fight for transgender rights does not begin and end at the bathroom door.

Transgender people, especially transgender women of color, face pervasive discrimination throughout life, including by those sworn to protect us. As a new report by the Center for American Progress and the Movement Advancement Project reveals, the criminal justice system disproportionally harms and targets transgender people, tipping the scales against transgender people before, during, and after incarceration. Specifically, legal targeting and social stigma work together to funnel transgender people into the criminal justice system, and create huge obstacles when they try to get out of it.
[…]
Transgender people are under attack in many parts of this country, and the justice system too often fails many of our nation’s most vulnerable. Discriminatory targeting and continued abuse by our criminal justice system remain an everyday reality for transgender people like Destiny, Antonia, and Bianca. As our nation’s elected official discuss and debate reforming our broken criminal justice system, they should take note of the situation in North Carolina and seek to end state-sanctioned discrimination against transgender people, not foster it.
As the article said, the intersection of race and gender identity is not additive but multiplies the discrimination and the abuse that they face in the criminal justice system.



This afternoon I am at the Avon Senior Center for the LGBT day at the center. The event is part of the Moveable Senior Center initiative.

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