This And That In The News

"This And That In The News" is about articles in the news that have caught my eye and I want to comment on. The first article is about ACLU suing the state of Alaska to revise their driver license requirement that you have to have surgery before they will change the gender marker on your driver license.

Alaska sued in transgender driver's license case
The Sacramento Bee
By BECKY BOHRER
Associated Press
Published: Monday, Jul. 18, 2011

JUNEAU, Alaska -- The American Civil Liberties Union is suing the state of Alaska on behalf of a transgender woman, alleging that it denied her a driver's license listing her gender as female unless she provided proof that she'd undergone a sex change operation.

The lawsuit, which ACLU said was filed in state court in Anchorage Monday, states that denying the woman a license that accurately reflects her gender identity because she hasn't undergone surgery is unconstitutional.

"No one should have to disclose sensitive personal information or be forced to make major medical decisions in order to get an accurate driver's license," Jeffrey Mittman, executive director of the ACLU of Alaska, said in a news release.

The standard of care for transsexuals requires trans-people to live for the minimum of one year in their true gender and that creates a problem for us in states like Alaska where we cannot change the gender on driver license. The policy outs us every time we are asked for their driver license. However, many states allow you to change the gender marker on your driver license, including Connecticut; however, most states do not. This is from the National Center for Transgender Equality’s blog…

The current edition of MOVE, a magazine for the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators (AAMVA), includes extensive coverage of issues transgender people face with identification cards. The article “Transgender Drivers: New Norms in Customer Service,” encourages DMV staff in all states to reflect on their treatment of transgender people and sets a positive tone for transgender people in their service offices:

The notion that a person believes the sex assigned at birth is an inadequate description or application of their gender may conflict with the DMV staffs’ personal, political or religious beliefs. As public servants, personal feelings or bias cannot interfere with quality customer service extended to those we serve. When there are fewer facts known and agreed upon, there is greater controversy; where there are more facts known and agreed upon, controversy diminishes. Perhaps no greater place is this felt than in the transgender community.

The next news article that caught my attention was a real surprise (sic)

Conservative group to fight gay textbook law
San Francisco Chronicle
Wyatt Buchanan, Chronicle Sacramento Bureau
July 16, 2011

Sacramento --

A socially conservative organization based in Sacramento filed documents Friday afternoon to start a voter referendum on a controversial law that adds the contributions of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans to school instruction.
[…]
The Capitol Resource Institute is a hard-line, socially conservative organization that has long opposed efforts in California to expand rights for the LGBT population. Backers eventually would have to collect 433,971 signatures to allow voters to decide whether to keep the law in place or reject it.

Instead of LGBT people, if the law said that they had to teach about Native Americans or blacks do you think there would have been a referendum on the law? But because it is about LGBT people some people think that it is OK to discriminate.

The next article is about public accommodation, a Vermont Inn refused to have a wedding reception because the wedding was for a lesbian couple.

Lesbian Couple: Vt. Resort Barred Their Wedding
NPR
By The Associated Press
July 19, 2011

Two New York women say a Vermont inn refused to host their wedding reception because of the owners' anti-gay bias. The couple is now suing, alleging discrimination under the state's public accommodations law.
[…]
The American Civil Liberties Union's Vermont chapter filed the lawsuit Tuesday in Caledonia Superior Court. It says the inn violated the state Fair Housing and Public Accommodations Act, which bars public accommodations from denying services to people based on sexual orientation.

If you are open to serve the public, you have to serve everyone, not just the people you choose to serve. If they refused to hold a wedding reception for a Jewish couple that would be wrong and so is not having a reception for a lesbian couple.

Lastly, it seems that in West Hartford CT there is a push-poll going around that is being done by some unknown conservative group asking questions about the gender inclusive non-discrimination bill just signed in to law…

In West Hartford, a robo-poll about local taxes, school redistricting for racial balance and the "transgender bathroom accommodation ordinance"
Hartford Courant
By Daniela Altimari
July 11, 2011

The next set of questions dealt with not with local policy but a new state law extending civil rights protections to transgender people.

"In West Hartford it is now legal for transgender people to use the public restroom of the gender [that they associate with], not necessarily their actual gender,'' the questioner stated before asking whether I support or oppose such a law.

The follow up asked whether I would support or oppose a town council resolution opposing this new law, and whether I would be more or less likely to support a candidate for town council who publicly opposed the "transgender bathroom accommodation ordinance."

Of course it is always about restroom and not about discrimination.