Are We Going To Be Thrown Under The Bus Again?

The aggressive persecution of the trans community by the Trump administration and the Republican party that are proceeding in the face of the Supreme Court ruling that included us in Title VII defining “sex” to include us. The U.S. Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights argues the policy violates the civil rights of girls who are not transgender under Title IX ignoring the court’s ruling.

The Department of Education under DeVos is threatening to withhold federal education funds to Connecticut and the cities because of the state support of trans athletes.
Trump administration threatens to withhold federal funds to Connecticut schools over inclusive transgender athlete policy
Hartford Courant
By Pat Eaton-Robb AP
September 17, 2020


The U.S. Department of Education is threatening to withhold some federal funding from Connecticut school districts if they follow a state policy that allows transgender girls to compete as girls in high school sports.

In response to a complaint filed last year by several cisgender female track athletes who argued that two transgender female runners had an unfair physical advantage, the federal agency’s office for civil rights determined in May that Connecticut’s policy violates the civil rights of athletes who are not transgender.

School districts including New Haven, as well as the Capitol Region Education Council, were asked around the beginning of September to sign a document to receive grants from a program for magnet schools that states they will “not participate in any interscholastic sporting events” unless the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference changes its policy on transgender athletes.
[…]
The ACLU of Connecticut, which is representing the transgender athletes, said the Trump administration is trying to pressure schools into denying transgender athletes an opportunity to compete.

“It’s incredibly mean spirited,” said Dan Barrett, the ACLU of Connecticut’s legal director. Connecticut Attorney General William Tong declined to say how the state will respond but said he is working with the school districts to secure their magnet school funding.

The schools and the state is caught up in the discrimination coming out of Washington DC where anything LGBTQ is coming under fire especially trans people. We are seen as the low hanging fruit for easy picking.

The New York Times wrote…

The move to withhold about $18 million intended to help schools desegregate could have national implications for both transgender athletes and students of color.

The department’s Office for Civil Rights has warned officials at three Connecticut school districts that it will not release desegregation grants as planned on Oct. 1, unless the districts cut ties with the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference over its transgender policies. Negotiations among the parties continued Thursday evening.

Officials with the conference, which governs high school athletics in the state, say their policies conform to Connecticut law.

WSHU reported,

School board member Ed Joyner said the district plans to fight the move.

“The Office of Civil Rights — I don’t feel comfortable calling them that now — are using this example to take money from us that really, most of it is devoted to academic learning and the resources we need to educate our kids,” Joyner said.

New Haven Mayor Justin Elicker said the board is ready to fight the move.

“This is effectively extortion, where the federal government is taking away funding from our public schools, which we will fight, in order to put us in a position where we’re going against something that I believe is an important policy that we uphold,” Elicker said.

Connecticut governor Lamont has hinted that he will disobey Connecticut law and allow the discrimination in order to save the federal funds for the state.

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Meanwhile out in Colorado the question is will we be included in their quest for equality in the state.

Justice for all: CO transgender rights activists want their community included in fight for equality
Denver Channel Ch 7
By Micah Smith, Stephen McNelis
September 16, 2020


DENVER — As nationwide social justice movements continue to demand justice for marginalized communities, a group of local Colorado activists say the transgender community has been left out of the national conversation.

“We have been marginalized and pushed to the side,” said Rev. Nicole Garcia, the pastor for mission development at Westview Presbyterian Church in Boulder,
[…]
“Even today, we see trans women of color as leaders and activists when it comes to speaking out against police violence and police harassment,” Schultz [Garcia, Sable Schultz, the manager of transgender services at the Center on Colfax] said.

But Schultz said brutality doesn't just come at the hands of police.

Since the start of 2020, the Human Rights Campaign has tracked 26 murders of transgender women and 19 were women of color.

Many perpetrators have tried to justify their actions saying women “passed” or appeared to be women who were assigned the sex “female” at birth.

Last year the governor signed into law banning Conversion Therapy and you may remember that Colorado is the state of Masterpiece Cakeshop case where the court ruled that the state’s Colorado Civil Rights Commission brought religious bias into the decision making.