Diana’s Little Corner in the Nutmeg State: Where You Live

Thursday, August 17, 2017

Where You Live

Where you live has a lot to do with you rights, some state have a strong human rights record but in other states they are doing everything can to make our lives hell on earth for us. One trans woman wrote this about living in a red state.

Living transgender in a red state
Red Dirt Report
By Chelsea Copeland
August 16, 2017

[…]
Natalie is in a difficult situation living in Oklahoma and being transgender.

“Living in this state has caused me to pause my transition completely out of concern for my wellbeing. If a person doesn't "pass" (meaning they come off as one sex or the other and not someone in between), the least that can happen are stares and whispers everywhere they go. Last month a trans woman was attacked on the street I live on, and I had always felt rather safe from violence in a city more liberal like Tulsa. Only my friends know that I am out; I wouldn't dare apply or reveal myself on a job for concern of backlash. I'll probably wait to get on estrogen until I move. The mood in the state has definitely shifted since the end of 2016. People are more vocal in their hate.”

Despite her travels from Ohio and Oklahoma, Natalie may not be settled just yet. She’s having trouble finding specialized healthcare for transgender people. “I'm hoping and working toward Colorado with a fallback plan of the west coast. The only available option here for a trans person with limited resources who can't get a therapist to sign off on hormones would be Planned Parenthood. I'd have access to healthcare in both options.”
[…]
“I've gotten hate messages on Facebook for speaking out against prejudice. I don't go into women's restrooms as I don't "pass", and if you don't pass in this state there's a heavy stigma that you're probably trying to creep on children in a bathroom

“I've yet to be physically assaulted. I don't go out presenting as female due to concerns for my safety Only in controlled environments, with friends and such usually their homes, or at the Transgender support group nearby.”

Some people don’t have a choice where they live, it takes money to move that they don’t have or need just to survive.

I am going away to Ogunquit this weekend with some friends so my blogging might be sporadic.

Marginal Way

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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

Thursday, August 17, 2017

Where You Live

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