Many, Many Times I Have Said…

…Human rights should not be put up for a vote. One of the reasons our founding fathers created the Bill of Rights was they realized that the majority could suppress the minority.

Is Massachusetts the next transgender rights battleground?
Politico
By Lauren Dezenski
03/29/2018

BOSTON — Deep-blue Massachusetts may seem an unlikely battleground in the fight over transgender rights. But supporters and opponents alike say a November ballot question on whether to strike down the state’s recently enacted law protecting transgender individuals in public spaces could be the next crucible in the national debate.

“Both sides recognize this vote has national implications. If this movement can be stopped in Massachusetts, it can be stopped anywhere in the country,” said Andrew Beckwith, president of the Massachusetts Family Institute, which opposes the commonwealth’s 2016 transgender protection law.

Despite its liberal reputation, Massachusetts has plenty of socially conservative pockets (and routinely elects moderate GOP governors, like current Gov. Charlie Baker). But proponents of the Massachusetts law are worried that support for it is weak enough that a concerted effort by opponents of transgender rights could create a public firestorm like the one that gripped North Carolina in 2016, and lead voters to overturn the law.

You know that the opposition will get down and dirty with lies and innuendos about bathrooms, we see that now in Alaska.

Anchorage voters to decide on anti-transgender "bathroom" law pushed by far-right extremists
Southern Poverty Law Center
By Brendan Joel Kelley
March 21, 2018

Voters in Anchorage, Alaska are deciding the fate of an anti-transgender “bathroom” initiative in the city’s first vote-by-mail election (ballots are due by Election Day, Tuesday, April 3).

Proposition 1, on the ballot due to the signature-gathering efforts of the far-right anti-LGBT Alaska Family Council (AFC), would overturn some protections enshrined by the Anchorage Assembly’s (the city’s legislative body) 2015 nondiscrimination law, and require city-owned changing facilities and restrooms to be designated for persons of the same sex listed on their birth certificate. The current nondiscrimination law being targeted by the Alaska Family Council and its allies entitles people to use bathrooms, locker rooms and dressing rooms that are “consistent with their gender identity.”

Anchorage, which last year elected the state’s first two openly gay politicians, Christopher Constant and Felix Rivera, to the municipal assembly, has a long history with anti-LGBT culture wars, and the Alaska Family Council, led by its director Jim Minnery, has been the tip of the spear in attempts to deny LGBT equality over the last decade.

And who is pushing the anti-trans bill?

Minnery and the Alaska Family Council, with support from the national anti-LGBT hate group Alliance Defending Freedom (of which Minnery’s cousin Tom was a co-founder and former board chairman), led the campaign against Anchorage’s Proposition 5 in 2012, which would have added sexual orientation and transgender identity to the city’s civil rights code. The initiative failed after an ugly campaign against it that included anti-transgender cartoon ads former Governor Tony Knowles described as “intentionally stigmatizing” and “dehumanizing.”

And you can bet your bottom dollar we will see the same thing in Massachusetts and you can also bet that PAC money from both sides will pour into Massachusetts. Politico writes...

Keep Massachusetts Safe has so far seen the vast majority of its donations limited to in-state contributions. Of other major national conservative groups who have been involved in campaigns like the one in North Carolina, only the conservative Family Policy Alliance says it is “still evaluating whether we will give a monetary grant toward this referendum,” said spokesperson Autumn Stroup. Family Policy Alliance, which considers the Massachusetts Family Institute a state-based member of its alliance, has provided resources and behind-the-scenes support related to the law, she added.

Let us hope that sanity wins out.

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Really great evening last night with really great people.

I was on a panel last night answering questions from the audience about the book and trans stuff after a reading by the authors of "At the Broken Places". Another trans woman was also on the panel. Also one of my former professors and the some of the staff at UConn School of Social Work, it was nice to seeing them again. I also got a tour of the school's new digs.

One of the questions from a professor who asked was what do you about the opposition, how do you change their minds?

I thought wow! That is right out of the community organizing manual… you don’t, you go for the movable center. You thank your supports and tell the opposition that you don’t agree with them, and then concentrate of those that you can change.