A Target On Our Backs

When you are in the news it is like a target is placed on our backs because it brings out all the wackos and bigots. And it seems the younger we are the more hateful are the bigots.

A few days ago the right wing Pacific Justice Institute (Don’t you just love the names these right wing organization think up. Doesn’t the Pacific Justice Institute make you think of Superman standing in front of the America flag?) made false allegations against a trans-girl in elementary school, they claimed that the trans-student was harassing a girl in the bathroom which turned out to be totally false.
In an article by Cristan in the TransAdvocate, “Family of Colorado trans kid targeted by harassment hoax speaks up,” she writes…

I asked Jane’s mother how she learned about the allegations concerning her daughter. What you are about to learn gives a context to the campaign against Jane that has, until now, been totally missing. As you read the following account, I want you to put yourself in this family’s place. Imagine how this would have affected you and your family:
    “My wife and I were visiting my sister who was in the hospital while my daughter was in school. The principal called to inform me that a newscaster was at the school and wanted to interview me about my daughter’s ‘bathroom rights’ – this was the first I’d heard about any of this. From what I understand, the school didn’t even know. From what I was told, some adults tried to hold a rally protesting my daughter in a town close to ours, but only a couple of people showed up, so the news crew went to the school and the school called me to say that the news crew was showing up to talk about my daughter.

    I didn’t want our daughter to be left there alone, so we headed to the school. I wasn’t sure what was going on, but I knew they were coming for my daughter. I had no idea who started this, but we had we had to be there.

    I know my daughter. She’s a shy and timid person. It was upsetting. As a matter of fact, before we moved to this town, she was afraid that she would be bullied at school. She had a fear that if she went to this new school, something would happen and she wouldn’t be safe.

    I reassured her. I told her that everything was going to be fine and to not worry… We’re going through a lot.”

A media ambush is how the school, Jane and Jane’s family learned about the “harassment” charges. Let’s be clear about what this was: it’s a classic media gotcha moment. Prior to this hostile media encounter, apparently no allegations had been made about Jane.

The mother went to say about the psychological damage that caused her daughter when she read what people were saying about her…

My daughter was the one who learned about the Pacific Justice Institute. She saw it online. She was upset. It made her panic. She saw where their story had become international news and she saw what people were saying. It gave her anxiety attacks. She was upset about the whole thing. She kept asking me how people could do that to her. She saw all this negative stuff about her and she can’t understand how they could say those things when they don’t even know who she is as a person. They don’t know what this does to a kid.

It seems like these right wing wackos like to compete to see who can say the meanest thing to her and inflict emotional pain. They show their ignorance of biology by saying there is only “male” and “female” by quoting the Bible and totally ignoring intersex people.

Another trans-person who was the subject of percussion was a Russian trans-women…

Trans Woman Commits Suicide After Firing Under Russia's 'Propaganda' Ban
Dasha Stern was 22 years old when she took her own life after being fired under Russia's nationwide ban on so-called homosexual propaganda.
The Advocate
BySunnivie Brydum
October 22, 2013

A 22-year-old transgender woman in Russia reportedly took her own life last Wednesday after she was fired from a promising job because her employers feared they were in violation of a nationwide ban on "propaganda of nontraditional sexual relationships," reports the Association of Russian Lawyers for Human Rights on its blog, RusAdvocat.

LGBT advocates are calling Dasha Stern "the first victim of Putin's antigay law,"  reporting that she lost her job with a central Russian municipality when her supervisors became concerned that they would be in violation of the national ban on so-called homosexual propaganda by employing her. RusAdvocat also reports that Stern had recently been disowned by her parents and kicked out of her home, presumably for being transgender. Stern had recently been approved for a mortgage and auto loan but was unable to make those payments after she lost her job.

When is the hate going to stop?