This And That In The News - The Good & The Bad News

"This And That In The News" is about articles in the news that have caught my eye and I want to share or comment about. These are the articles that caught my attention last week. So what is it going to be the good news first or the bad news?

I think that I start it off with the bad news this week…

Florida Equality reported that Jacksonville City Council rejected anti-discrimination protections for their LGBT population…

Tonight by a vote of 17 to 2, the Jacksonville City Council voted to reject bill 2012-296 - a fully-inclusive measure that would have added sexual orientation and gender identity to the city’s Human Rights Ordinance (HRO).

Before the final vote, several attempts were made to amend the bill by stripping out gender identity protections - all of which failed. In the end, bill sponsor Warren Jones and Denise Lee were the only two members of the council who voted in favor of the fully inclusive final bill.

Those of you who say that they should have dropped us from the bill in order to pass a SO only anti-discrimination law, just remember that there have a number of court cases where the employer said that they didn’t fire the employee because they were gay, but because of the way that they expressed themselves, they acted too feminine.

The next news story is heading in the right direction, in Philadelphia the school systems wants to include gender neutral language in the school dress code. Philly.com reported that…

THE SCHOOL REFORM Commission unanimously approved the revised Code of Student Conduct on Thursday night but added a resolution on language regarding nonconforming gender identities to be included under the dress-code/uniform policy.
[…]
SRC Chairman Pedro Ramos said the language proposed by Ginyard sounded easy enough to include, but he wanted the appropriate district departments to review and vet the phrasing.
That is a good step in the right direction. The article went on to say that…

The new code of conduct also places less emphasis on zero-tolerance punishment and allows for more flexibility in determining consequences for a range of offenses. Students cannot get out-of-school suspensions for minor infractions such as profanity, inappropriate use of electronic devices or public displays of affection.
This is also good because a lot of times the victim of bullying is also punished as result of the bullying. The school many times does not do anything to stop the bullying until the target of the bullying fights back and then they both get punished.

The rest of the news stories are all good this week…

There is a new book that just came out about children who have transitioned…
Transitions of the Heart: Stories of Love, Struggle, and Acceptance by Mothers of Transgender and Gender Variant Children, collected and edited by Rachel Pepper (Cleis Press) and you can read an excerpt here.

The next story comes to use from across the pond where a bank refused to change a woman’s name on her bank account. PinkPaper reports that…

As First Direct is an internet bank, they have to ask for the account name they have on their computer. In order to change this name, Miss Williams was asked for a deed poll. The bank then said they needed to see her gender reassignment certificate. They then asked Miss Williams to take another deed poll into a HSBC branch, whilst posting in the original.

Each time Miss Williams dealt with the bank she was obliged to give her old name, compounding her discomfort: “Every phone call I made was painful for me.”
[…]
Having decided to leave First Direct, Miss Williams discoverd she could not even transfer her account to a new bank because to do this both old and new accounts must be in the same name.

Ahh… the fun of name change! One of my credit cards botched my name change and took three tries to get it right and now on my credit history it shows the aborted name changes as AKA.

The last news story is about Campus Pride releasing the list of the top ten trans-friendly colleges and universities.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. – Campus Pride, the nation’s leading educational organization for student leaders and campus groups working to create a safer college environment for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) students, announced today the first-ever national “Top 10 List of Trans-Friendly Colleges & Universities.” This transgender-specific resource listing was created in part from data complied annually since 2007 in the Campus Pride Index, which takes an in-depth look at LGBT-friendly policies, programs, and practices.

The campuses included in Campus Pride’s “2012 Top 10 Trans-friendly Colleges & Universities” include (alphabetically): Ithaca College; New York University; Princeton University; University of California, Los Angeles; University of California, Riverside; University of Massachusetts, Amherst; University of Michigan, Ann Arbor; University of Oregon; University of Pennsylvania; and University of Vermont…

The Advocate has a list of what they looked for in the schools…

These 10 colleges and universities have demonstrated their commitment to the trans community by implementing many trans-supportive policies, including adding “gender identity and/or expression” to their nondiscrimination policies; offering gender-inclusive bathrooms, locker rooms, and housing options; providing a means for trans students who have not legally changed their names or had gender confirmation surgeries to use a preferred name and to change the gender on campus records and documents; recognizing trans identities on campus forms; and covering hormones and surgeries for transitioning students as part of student health insurance.

I believe that list is arbitrary that there are many more schools that meet the criteria for trans-friendly schools.

Last year I graduated from a graduate school at the University of Connecticut and I had no problems with the staff or students. Uconn does have gender inclusive non-discrimination policy, they had a LGBT center for also long as I can remember, they have gender neutral dorms and bathrooms (I’m not positive about locker rooms, but I’ll check next month when I’m on campus.). When I first went to grad school I hadn’t transitioned yet and all the teachers called me by my preferred name and when I did transition they changed my records over to my new name. They also cover hormones and surgeries for transitioning students as part of student health insurance. So UConn could have easily made the top ten list.