Save Us!

It is in your hands now; it is up to you the voters to protect us. We are just 0.5% of the population we need your support and protection.

Transgender protections: Let’s uphold them
Greenfield Recordr
Sunday, November 04, 2018

Think protection against transgender discrimination is a fringe issue? Not around here. From middle school students all the way up to Rainbow Elders, our neighbors in Franklin County and the North Quabbin area are fighting for the rights of LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning) persons to go about their daily lives without compromising the most intimate aspect of their identity – their sexual orientation.

Here are a few examples: Last January, the Diversity Standing Committee at Greenfield Community College chose middle-schooler Marina Osit as the recipient of their Bright Lights award. Marina came up with message buttons that read, “Gay does not mean ‘stupid,’” and “Sushi rolls, not gender roles” to gently spread a campaign of acceptance to counteract hurtful remarks. Her button campaign spread to other schools, ultimately reaching hundreds of students in our area.
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A “yes” vote on Question 3 would keep in place the current law, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of gender identity in places of public accommodation. A “no” vote would repeal this provision of the 2016 public accommodation law.

On Tuesday, Nov. 6, we recommend that you protect the rights of our transgender neighbors and vote “Yes” on Question 3: Transgender anti-discrimination.

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My Life Before The Transgender Protection Law
WBUR
By Robson Govine
November 5, 2018

When we go to vote on Question 3 this week, we will be voting on the safety of each other. We will vote to either uphold a law protecting transgender people in public spaces, like bathrooms and locker rooms, or to repeal it.

This is why I am voting yes on Question 3. This is my story.
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In 2013, I began to transition physically from female to male by taking testosterone. Six months in I hit what should have been an expected obstacle: I became very uncertain which locker room I could use. I’m 5 foot 4 inches, and even with the hormone therapy, short hair, and men’s clothes you could still look at me and be uncertain which locker room I should be in. I used the women’s room for as long as I could — but eventually my chin started to sprout hair.

I stopped using the women’s locker room when this happened. I was afraid someone would complain to management and they would ban me from the gym — something that would not only throw a wrench in my sanity, but also a scenario that felt embarrassing and exposing. I was afraid someone would yell at me — worse, try to confront me either verbally or physically.

I didn’t use the men’s room either. As much as I knew I didn’t belong in the women’s room anymore, I also didn’t feel I fit in the men’s room, and for many of the same reasons, I steered clear. I was afraid if I used either locker room, someone would know I was transgender, and I didn’t feel safe.
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Voting yes on Question 3 ensures that both of us have laws in place that protect us in public places and makes us feel safe. Voting no only protects only one of us.

I want you to feel safe. I want to feel safe too. Can we do that together?

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Not voting has consequences. Queer and transgender people in Trump’s America know this all too well
Sacramento Bee
By Erika D. Smith
November 03, 2018

The sun was just setting last Tuesday as dozens of people, some briefly turning to cast uneasy glances at the railroad tracks behind them, gathered in a solemn semi-circle outside the Sacramento LGBT Community Center.

They had come to mourn Kendall Rae Murray, an 18-year-old woman who had been killed by a freight train the night before. Emergency responders found her body near the crossing at Capitol Avenue and 20th Street in midtown, a mere block away from where the group now stood. She died at the scene.

“We had a person step out in front of us here,” a Union Pacific engineer told dispatch.

What happened in the wee hours of Monday and why still isn’t exactly clear yet. Her family has been mostly mum about it all, as have the employees of the LGBT Center, which many described as “her second home,” even as she bounced from Roseville to Elk Grove to Auburn. Mostly, though, she was homeless and fighting drug addiction.
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For many of those who had come to mourn Murray’s death, all that mattered was that she was just one more victim of pain and violence, one more friend lost, for a queer and transgender community that has found itself and its allies increasingly under attack in big, small and always emotionally tolling ways.
For months, the Trump administration has been rolling back hard-fought civil rights protections granted under the Obama administration, from trying to stop transgender people, in particular, from serving in the military to ending policies that recognize gender identity in health care, schools, prisons and homeless shelters.
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It’s no wonder then that calls to the crisis hotline, Trans Lifeline, have more than quadrupled in recent weeks. Already the United States is on track for this year being the deadliest for transgender people since the Human Rights Campaign started keeping data on murders and assaults in 2013.

“We are able see in real time that policy debates don’t take place in a vacuum,” Sam Ames, the executive director of Trans Lifeline, told Teen Vogue. “They have direct and immediate impacts on real lives.”

Indeed, there is a short line between the hell that many marginalized people are going through right now — whether it’s transgender people being defined out of existence, Jewish people being the target of anti-Semitic violence or immigrants being smeared at campaign rallies — and the Trump administration.

Please vote “Yes on 3” and vote Democratic for me and all the other trans people.

Help end this nightmare that has descended upon this country.