Diana’s Little Corner in the Nutmeg State: The Masquerade Ball

Monday, February 01, 2016

The Masquerade Ball

Is that what police think of us? That we are just masquerading?

Trans people to police: We're not 'portrayals'
The Philadelphia Gay New
By Tim Cwiek
January 28, 2016

Trans folks are speaking out against a Pennsylvania State Police practice of categorizing anti-transgender hate crimes by male or female “portrayal.”

State police recently posted on its website an anti-trans hate-crime incident in Philadelphia, categorized as “female portrayal.”

“We’re trans people, we’re not portraying anything,” said Julie Chovanes, a trans woman and attorney. “How can we get accurate hate-crimes reporting from the police if they see us playing a role?”

Trans people’s humanity is denied by the language used by state police, Chovanes said.

“They don’t even give us personhood,” she added. “Since they don’t give us personhood, how can they recognize crimes against us? To them, we are portrayals, caricatures. And there’s no such thing as a crime against a portrayal or a caricature.”

The state police saying that they are only following FBI guidelines but…

FBI spokesperson C. Michael Riley said the FBI doesn’t recommend that anti-trans hate crimes have “portrayal” categories. He also said the FBI doesn’t convey its hate-crimes data to the public in such a manner.

“The FBI’s uniform crimes-reporting program is currently collaborating with a government working group to address specific issues on reporting anti-transgender bias crimes,” Riley added. “A decision to release additional information on working with and/or reporting data on transgender victims will be addressed at a later date.”

To me it sounds like that the Pennsylvania State Police are trying to weasel out of admitting that they are biased against trans people.

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Quotes

Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.

Morality cannot be legislated, but behavior can be regulated. Judicial decrees may not change the heart, but they can restrain the heartless.

A right delayed is a right denied.Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. Hate destroys a man's sense of values and his objectivity. It causes him to describe the beautiful as ugly and the ugly as beautiful, and to confuse the true with the false and the false with the true.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction.

Martin Luther King Jr.

No one is born hating another person… People must learn to hate and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.
Nelson Mandela

We can disagree and still love each other, unless your disagreement is rooted in my oppression and denial of my humanity and right to exist
James Baldwin

There is a fine line between free speech and hate speech. Free speech encourages debate whereas hate speech incites violence.
Newton Lee

The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything.
Albert Einstein

"The point is that there are always obstacles, whether they seem insurmountable or merely bothersome. The question is not how difficult the path, but whether in your heart, you wish to undertake the journey."
Zandru's Forge

Keep your thoughts positive because your thoughts become your words. Keep your words positive because your words become your behavior. Keep your behavior positive because your behavior becomes your habits. Keep your habits positive because your habits become your values. Keep your values positive because your values become your destiny.
Mahatma Gandhi

“I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time -- when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness...
― Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

You've Got To Be Carefully Taught
You've got to be taught
To hate
And fear
You've got to be taught
From year
To year
Its got to
Be drummed in your dear little ear
You've got to
Be carefully
Taught
You've got to be taught
To be
Afraid
Of people
Who's eyes are oddly made
And people who's skin is a different shade

South Pacific
Songwriters: Oscar Hammerstein II / Richard Rogers

Monday, February 01, 2016

The Masquerade Ball

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