We Are Not Important

We don’t rate, it is more important to argue over a definition and who is being harmed most then it is to argue if we are being discriminated against.

In Texas Transgender Suit, Who’s Facing Harm?
States play victim in federal court, but LGBT advocates say trans kids are the ones truly at risk.
The Observer
By John Wright
August 13, 2016

Friday’s hearing in Texas’ lawsuit challenging the Obama administration’s recent guidance on how schools should accommodate transgender students focused heavily on questions related to “harm.”

Are Texas and 12 other co-plaintiff states being harmed by the guidance, a requirement for the states to have standing to bring their legal challenge, even though the administration says it isn’t binding?

If so, is that harm “irreparable”? That’s the threshold the states must meet for U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor to grant a preliminary injunction blocking the guidance.

But after more than two hours of arguments inside a federal courtroom in Fort Worth, LGBT advocates lamented that amid all the legalese, the hearing failed to address what they perceive to be the real harm in the case. They said trans students in Texas and across the nation are being harmed on a daily basis by schools that don’t follow the federal guidance, which says schools should allow students to use restrooms and locker rooms according to their gender identity.

Meanwhile kids are at the risk of self-harm, they are being bullied not only by the other students but also by the school administration.

School policies give the green light to school bullies. When schools force trans student to use their birth gender bathrooms or the school nurse’s bathroom it singles out trans students and makes them a target for the bullies.

After the hearing, Mark Phariss, an attorney and a plaintiff in the federal lawsuit that overturned Texas’ same-sex marriage ban last year, rattled off statistics as he stood in front of news cameras outside the courthouse. Phariss pointed to a recent study showing 33 percent of LGBT students are bullied, 40 percent have contemplated suicide, and 29 percent had attempted it in the previous 18 months. He accused Attorney General Ken Paxton of wasting taxpayer money to bring his lawsuit challenging the guidance “for the purpose of politics.”

“It’s a shame and a disgust,” Phariss said.

But down it Texas they do things the Texas way…

Minter, a prominent figure in national LGBT circles, said after the hearing it would be “completely unprecedented and extraordinary for a federal judge to tell federal agencies that they cannot advance their own view of the law in future cases.”

Nevertheless, Minter acknowledged that during the hearing, O’Connor seemed inclined to grant an injunction.

O’Connor, who has a record of ruling against LGBT rights, quizzed Nimocks briefly on a few of the state’s points, but spent far more time grilling Berwick, only to rebut many of his responses. Near the close of the proceeding, O’Connor asked Nimocks how soon the AG’s office needs a decision on its request for an injunction, given that the start of the school year is approaching.

Do you want to take a guess who appointed the judge?

President George W. Bush.

This is why it is vital that we elect Clinton. With up to three Supreme Court justices retiring whoever is president with shape the future for a generation.