It Is Going To Be A Long Cold Winter

And I don’t mean the season or the weather but justice.

With the politically packed Supreme Court with anti-LGBTQ justices we are going to be facing a lot of draconian rulings against is.

As the future of Obamacare heads to the supreme court, so do trans rights
Trans people could lose healthcare as Republican state attorneys general seek to have the entire landmark Affordable Care Act law tossed out
The Guardian
By Katelyn Burns
27 Oct 2020


[…]
The Affordable Care Act (ACA) is scheduled to be argued before the supreme court on 4 November. The lawsuit – which has been widely panned by legal experts – was brought by 19 Republican state attorneys general and seeks to have the entire landmark healthcare law tossed out. The future of the ACA was a common theme during hearings for Judge Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination to the high court – now that she has been confirmed, she will soon be hearing California v Texas, a case challenging the landmark healthcare law.

“Life for trans people in terms of access to healthcare before and after the ACA is like night and day,” said Shannon Minter, an expert in transgender law and an attorney at the National Center for Lesbian Rights. But many Americans don’t have a grasp on the important role the ACA has played for LGBTQ people, especially those who are transgender, potentially making this fall’s supreme court arguments the most critical transgender rights case ever heard at the court.

“If you were just going to point to a major case currently before the court that has the potential to have the greatest impact on transgender people it’s unquestionably the ACA,” said Minter, “I’m amazed that more people don’t understand this, that this hasn’t gotten more attention.”

Here in Connecticut we have some strong laws to guarantee insurance coverage which was strengthened by a ruling last fall by the Commission on Human Rights and Opportunity but still we are in a precarious situation with the US Supreme Court, our laws could be overturned by them. Or they could rule that the laws can be overriding by “religious freedom” where a person just has to state that it is against my firmly held beliefs.

The Human Rights Campaign: Amy Coney Barrett’s Confirmation is a Sham, Threatens LGBTQ Equality
Human Rights Campaign
By Nick Morrow
October 26, 2020


The Human Rights Campaign released the following statement following the final Senate vote to confirm Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court of the United States.

“Despite Amy Coney Barrett’s troubling anti-LGBTQ record and rhetoric, Senate Republicans rushed through the fastest Supreme Court confirmation process in modern history. This was a power grab, plain and simple, and voters must hold these Senators – and Donald Trump – accountable at the polls,” said Alphonso David, president of the Human Rights Campaign. “The process was a sham, the hearings were fast-tracked, and once again, Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump have chosen power over people. We must reject this bald power grab and elect officials – especially in the White House and the U.S. Senate – who will ensure our judicial branch lives up to its potential. Voters should hold Sens. Daines, Ernst, Gardner, Graham, McSally, Sullivan and Tillis accountable at the ballot box. Our democracy and our lives depend on it.”

It is going to be a long cold winter until we find a way to neutralize the packed the politicized Supreme Court.

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This has created fear in the LGBTQ+ community.

For transgender advocates, election stokes hopes and fears
"President Trump intends to use the full power of the presidency and the executive branch to inflict maximum damage" on trans people, one activist said.
NBC News
By The Associated Press
October 26, 2020


Among transgender-rights activists, there’s a powerful mix of hope and fear heading toward the Nov. 3 election. They’re yearning for President Donald Trump’s defeat but dreading the possibility that his administration might win four more years and continue targeting them with hostile policies.

“The stakes are extremely high,” said Shannon Minter, a transgender attorney with the National Center for Lesbian Rights. “It seems clear that President Trump intends to use the full power of the presidency and the executive branch to inflict maximum damage on the transgender community.”

Among the administration's moves that have been decried by activists:

— A near-total ban on military service by transgender people.
— Support from administration attorneys for efforts to prevent transgender girls from competing in Idaho K-12 girls' sports and university women sports and from doing so in Connecticut high school girls' sports.
— A move to end health-care protections for trans people provided by Affordable Care Act.
— Moves to eliminate anti-discrimination protections for trans people in homeless shelters and for trans students in schools.

[…]
“Every day it feels like there are new horrors to confront about the future, and the types of attacks we will encounter,” said Chase Strangio, who leads transgender-justice initiatives for the American Civil Liberties Union’s LGBT and HIV Project.

Even as he worries about what might lie ahead under a second term for Trump, Strangio is encouraged by the 6-3 Supreme Court ruling in June affirming that gays, lesbians and transgender people are protected from discrimination in employment under the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Well I am not encouraged by the vote because of the death of Justice Ginsberg.

Overall, Strangio is concerned that Trump’s appointments of more than 200 federal judges - and the likely addition of conservative judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court - is creating a federal judiciary that may not defend transgender rights.

It is going to be a long cold winter.

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And the hate for us has spread around the world and is taking hold in the sports world.

World Rugby's transgender ban a 'dangerous precedent,' critics say
The sport’s international governing body issued new guidelines barring trans women from playing women’s contact rugby due to “player welfare risks.”
NBC News
By Alex Berg
October 27, 2020


[...]
The updated regulations are among the most exclusionary policies for transgender athletes instituted by an international federation to date. They are a departure from major governing bodies’ policies on trans inclusion, including the International Olympic Committee’s rules that permit trans women to compete in the Olympics provided they maintain a certain testosterone level for 12 months prior to competition.

World Rugby’s new policy comes on the heels of other efforts to restrict trans women from playing women’s sports. In September, a group of Republican senators introduced a bill that would make it a federal civil rights violation for transgender girls to compete in women’s athletics. At the state level, the Department of Education threatened to withdraw funding from Connecticut school districts that permit trans girls to compete with cisgender (nontransgender) girls, and Idaho attempted to enact legislation over the summer banning trans women and girls from playing women’s sports. A number of high-profile female athletes, including the runner Paula Radcliffe and the tennis star Martina Navratilova, have also recently condemned the inclusion of trans women in women’s competitions.

We first fought this battle back in 1976 with Renee Richards… and won.

We will be fighting these battles for a long time coming and it is going to be a long cold winter for us.

VOTE!

Vote like your life depends on it because it does.