Down Under

Down in Australia the results from a nationwide non-binding referendum are in and marriage freedom won! But… you know there is always a “but.” This time it is the fact that the parliament conservatives are against marriage equality, so they are proposing a “religious bigot freedom” bill.

Conservatives Try to Sneak 'Religious Freedom' Into Australia's Marriage Bill
The right is using marriage equality as a Trojan horse for anti-LGBT legislation.
The Advocate
By Daniel Reynolds
November 13 2017


Australia is expecting a sizable "yes" majority to the question of legalizing same-sex marriage, according to recent polls.

However, this vote is nonbinding, which means it is up to the country's Parliament to pass legislation. And versions of this marriage equality bill include so-called religious freedom exemptions that attack LGBT rights, reports Al Jazeera.

Sen. Dean Smith, a member of the ruling Liberal Party (which is actually conservative), drafted a bill with bipartisan support that would give religious officials the power to refuse to marry same-sex couples.

Okay, that is the same as the U.S. which doesn’t force religious officials to perform marriages for same-sex partners. But…

An even more draconian bill written Monday by Sen. James Paterson would give a broad license to discriminate against LGBT people to businesses, teachers, parents, and nonprofits. If passed, this law would, for example, allow a baker to refuse to bake a cake for a gay couple, or students to "opt out of classes that conflict with their values," said Paterson.

"If it is wrong to force a priest to participate in a same-sex wedding against their beliefs, it should be wrong to force a florist or a photographer too," Paterson told The Australian.

So once again the conservatives ignore the consensus of the voters to push their agenda of hate and bigotry.

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In other news, the military has now said they will cover our medically necessary healthcare include Gender Confirming Surgery (GCS).

Pentagon to Pay for Surgery for Transgender Soldier
NBC News
By Courtney Kube
November 14, 2017

WASHINGTON — An active-duty service member was to undergo gender transition surgery Tuesday in the first such procedure approved under a waiver allowing the Pentagon to pay for the operation, according to a Defense Department document.

The patient is an infantry soldier who identifies as a woman, according to a source close to the service member. She got her Combat Infantry Badge in Operation Anaconda in Afghanistan in 2003, the source said.

Vice Admiral Raquel Bono, head of the Defense Health Agency, which provides medical care to active-duty personnel, approved the waiver request for the surgery Monday, defense officials said.

Now the question is; is this going to be just a onetime coverage or will it be policy? Will they cover only a lucky few servicemembers who have already received permission for surgery?

Time will tell.

If Trump’s ban on trans servicemembers stands up in court then I think we should push to have ROTC kicked off college campuses. Back when Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT) was the law of the land colleges kicked ROTC off their campus because it did not conform to their non-discrimination policies and the same should be done for us.

And I Bet It Will Increase Even More This Year

The FBI released their hate crime data for 2016 this week and there were no surprises, we are being killed, assaulted, and harassed more last year.

FBI: Anti-LGBT Hate Crimes Are On The Rise—Especially Against Trans Americans
Anti-trans incidents have increased more than 43%
NewNowNext
By Samantha Manzella
November 14, 2017

A new FBI report reveals hate crimes against the LGBT community are on the rise, particularly against transgender people.

Compiling data from more than 15,000 law enforcement agencies around the country, the Bureau’s 2016 Hate Crimes and Statistics report, indicates there were 6,121 hate crimes in all 2016—an increase of 5% from 2015.

Of the single-bias incidents, of which there were 6,063, 1,076 (17.7%) were motivated by sexual orientation, a 2% increase from 2015. Additionally, 124 incidents (2%) were motivated by the victim’s real or perceived gender identity.

The report differentiated between crimes against trans Americans and those who are gender-nonconforming: Anti-trans crimes increased from 73 to 105 between 2015 and 2016, a jump of nearly 43%. (Crimes against gender-nonconforming Americans actually decreased year-to-year.)

I have to wonder if the Trump administration will continue breaking out the date on LGBT and trans hate crimes or will we be listed under the “other” category?

The way the Trump administration has been erasing anything LGBT it wouldn’t doubt it. 

Is This Surprising?

A poll was done by PEW Research and guess what they found about who are more supportive of us, Democrats or Republicans?

Republicans, Democrats have starkly different views on transgender issues
By Anna Brown
November 8, 2017
The American public is fundamentally divided over whether it’s possible for someone to be a gender different from the sex they were assigned at birth, according to a new Pew Research Center survey. The survey comes amid debates over which public bathrooms transgender individuals should use, how they should be recognized on official documents and whether they should serve in the U.S. military.

Overall, roughly half of Americans (54%) say that whether someone is a man or a woman is determined by the sex they were assigned at birth, while 44% say someone can be a man or a woman even if that is different from the sex they were assigned at birth.

Perhaps not surprisingly, considering the widening partisan divide across a variety of issues, Democrats and Republicans have sharply different views on this question. While eight-in-ten Republicans and Republican-leaning independents say that whether someone is a man or a woman is determined by the sex they were assigned at birth, most Democrats and Democratic leaners (64%) take the opposite view and say a person’s gender can be different from the sex they were assigned at birth.

And education had a lot to do with acceptance,

The survey also finds that Democrats with a bachelor’s degree or more education are more likely than other Democrats to say a person’s gender can be different from the sex they were assigned at birth. About three-quarters (77%) of Democrats with a bachelor’s degree or more say this, compared with 60% of Democrats with some college and 57% of those with a high school diploma or less. No such divide exists among Republicans.

And age…

Millennials are somewhat more likely than older generations to say someone can be a man or a woman, even if that is different from the sex they were assigned at birth. Half of Millennials say this, compared with roughly four-in-ten Gen Xers (41%), Boomers (43%) and members of the Silent Generation (37%).

This is not surprising, if you know a person who is trans you are more likely accept us.

The link between knowing someone who is transgender and saying society should be more accepting of transgender people is evident among Republicans and Democrats alike. Among Republicans, 18% of those who know a transgender person say society hasn’t gone far enough in accepting people who are transgender, compared with 10% among those who don’t. The gap is even wider among Democrats: 71% of those who say they know someone who is transgender say society hasn’t gone far enough in accepting transgender people, versus 52% of Democrats who don’t know someone who is transgender.

So the Harvey Milk quote about coming out is true;

Gay brothers and sisters,...You must come out*. Come out... to your parents... I know that it is hard and will hurt them but think about how they will hurt you in the voting booth! Come out to your relatives... come out to your friends... if indeed they are your friends. Come out to your neighbors... to your fellow workers... to the people who work where you eat and shop... come out only to the people you know, and who know you. Not to anyone else.

*I don’t want  to force anyone out, especially if it is not safe, however, as we become more visible the polling number of those people who are on our side will go up as we become more mainstream.

I Have To Say I Agree

I once read a research paper on Validating and Mirroring for trans people and how it improved the outcome when we transition.

In the paper Witnessing and Mirroring: A Fourteen Stage Model of Transsexual Identity Formation by Aaron H. Devor, PhD, he says

Each of us has a deep need to be witnessed by others for whom we are. Each of us wants to see ourselves mirrored in others’ eyes as we see ourselves. These interactive processes, witnessing and mirroring, are part of everyone’s lives. When they work well, we feel validated and confirmed–our sense of self is reinforced (Poland, 2000). When the messages which one receives back from others do not match how one feels inside, various kinds of psychological distress and maladaptive behaviors can result. When the situation is especially severe it can lead to psychotic and/or suicidal behaviors.

I believe that it is true, we all need to be validated in our true gender and that is why microaggressions hurt so much because it destroys our validation.

So this leads me to this morning’s article…

The Little Things That Only a Trans Girl Can Appreciate
When a transgender woman feels a sense of validation by being included in something that most people take for granted. – “The Weekly Rant” with Mila Madison
Transgender Universe
By Mila Madison
November 13, 2017

What an amazing feeling. It is the moment when someone addresses you with the correct pronoun, a 'she', or even a 'miss', or 'ma’am'. It can be a 'he' or 'sir' for the guys or the more elusive 'they' for our non-binary friends. The feeling of elation we get from the validation. In that brief instance we are seen as we truly are. There are subtle things that can happen throughout a given day that can have profound effects on us as transgender people. For cisgender people, they pay it no mind. And who can blame them? They probably don’t even notice what pronoun someone is using when they are addressed. For most, they never had to even think about gender or the pronouns associated with it. For us as transgender people, it goes beyond pronouns. It can be when someone calls you by the correct name or when you are treated according to the societal norms associated with the gender in which you identify.

There are a million different things I could list. Those little things that make you smile that most people take for granted. Sometimes we attach ideals to experiences we were denied in our former existence, and it means everything to us in circumstances where cisgender people wouldn’t necessarily care. For example, I had always secretly wished I would one day be asked to be in a wedding party. To be able to experience what other women did. To put on that bridesmaid’s dress picked out for me by the bride that most girls dread having to wear. It would be pure bliss to me if I were asked. The same goes for being invited to a bridal or baby shower. To me, it would be validation that other people might see me for whom I am, to be included with the other women. To just be asked to be a part of it. A girl can dream can’t she? So I had hoped and waited until finally it happened.

BINGO! “Sometimes we attach ideals to experiences we were denied in our former existence”

I’ve been lucky, I been to two weddings, a bridal shower and a baby shower. It was an entry into a space that I have never been before and I learned a family tradition that has been passed down through the generations, an old British pence was sown into the hem of the bridal gown or worn in the a shoe.

Other validating spaces I have been we just last week, I go to a lesbian game night where we play board games and I am also going to a “friends of science night” with a group of lesbians next month’s topic is longevity.

---

This morning I am at Eastern Connecticut State University talking about trans issues in employment.

The Religious Right To Discriminate

The evangelical Christians and Republicans are using “religious freedom” to hide their bigotry behind, well now it is spreading to other countries around the world.

Right-wing politicians plot to derail LGBT rights even if Australia votes Yes to same-sex marriage
Pink News
By Benjamin Butterworth
13th November 2017

Right-wing politicians are plotting to implement a marriage bill that permits widespread discrimination if Yes wins the country’s postal survey.

Liberal senator James Paterson is to introduce bill that would override any anti-discrimination laws passed by state and territory level legislatures.

It will allow the refusal of same-sex weddings by anyone who holds a religious or “conscientious belief” in traditional marriage, allowing discrimination by private service providers.

Sound familiar?

Human rights should never be put to a vote. It shouldn’t be a popularity contest.

CEI Is Only As Good As Enforcement

I have heard a number of other companies with a high CEI rating firing or not caring about harassment of their trans employees.

HRC Yanks Walmart’s Perfect LGBT Score After Complaints Of Anti-Trans Discrimination
"Good corporate policy must be matched by a commitment to enforcement."
NewNextNow
By Samantha Manzella
November 10, 2017


Walmart received a perfect 100 in HRC’s new 2018 Corporate Equality Index (CEI), but the LGBT advocacy group is retracting that score amid employee complaints of harassment and discrimination.

The penalty marks only the second time in the 16-year history of the CEI that a company’s rating has been suspended.

Multiple investigations by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission “pointed to significant enforcement gaps in Wal-Mart’s non-discrimination policy, specifically with regards to sex and gender identity,” HRC noted in its 2018 CEI report. “Pending remedial steps by the company, [Walmart’s] CEI rating is suspended.”
[…]
In a statement, the Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund, which is representing both plaintiffs, said that “good corporate policy must be matched by a commitment to enforcement.”

Not only does the HRC need a commitment to enforcement the CEI but also some type of employee feedback on how the company is enforcing their policies.

Even with all the laws we have companies are still finding a way around the law such as firing a trans person using an often unenforced company policy or another flimsy excuse. They count on the trans employee not to file a complaint with the Commission on Human Rights and Opportunity or sue. Many trans people do not file a complaint or sue their former employer because they know it will be a public record that prospective employers check.

Trans Servicemembers Embraced With Open Arms

No it is not here in the U.S. but in Germany where trans troops serve openly in the military and now there is a Germany commander who has 600 troops under her command.

As Trump attempts a transgender military ban, Germany celebrates its first trans commander
Denver Post
By Rick Noack | The Washington Post
November 11, 2017

STORKOW, Germany – On July 26, when President Donald Trump unexpectedly tweeted his plans to ban transgender servicemen and women from the U.S. military, Anastasia Biefang was more than 4,000 miles away from Washington. Still, she could not hide her shock.

“It felt like a smack in the face,” said the 43-year-old German army officer, who is the first transgender person to command a military unit in the country’s history.

Biefang joined the German army as a man more than 23 years ago. Two years ago, despite fearing negative repercussions for her career, she came out to her superiors and eventually to her entire unit. Her decision to transition from male to female coincided with an unprecedented openness among top military officials in Germany, the United States and other countries to having transgender troops serve openly.

And Trump said that we would disrupt the cohesion of the military but around the world there are trans servicemembers.

At least 18 countries allow transgender service members to serve openly, including eight NATO members: Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Britain, Spain, France and Germany. Their overall assessment is that allowing transgender service members to serve openly can be an advantage to their armed forces, according to a RAND Corp. report released last year. “None of the militaries that we examined reported a negative impact on the operational effectiveness, operation readiness, or cohesion of the force,” said political scientist Agnes Gereben Schaefer, who co-wrote the study.

But the Family Research Council and along with other evangelical Christians have bend Trump’s ear to their hate and bigotry.

Kristallnacht November 9th & 10th

This past week was the anniversary of Kristallnacht. Do you know what Kristallnacht is and why it is important to the LGBT community?

It was the beginning of the persecution of not only the Jews but Gypsies, Jehovah's Witnesses, blacks, the physically, mentally disabled and social undesirables which included lesbians, gays, and trans people. The symbol of the pink triangle for LGBT people came about because that is what the NAZIs forced us to wear in the concentration camps.

So why do I bring this up?

Because of what that has been happening to our country

The similarities between the 1930s and now are becoming amazing.

First back in the 1920s and 1940s the global economy was in shambles we were in the grips of the great depression unemployment was rampant, wealth was concentrated in the hands of a few and the people were looking for scapegoats and they found them in religious minorities and the “deviants.” 

In the streets were marches for the “purity” of the white race where they used violence to terrorize minorities.

Political power was concentrated into one party and all opposition was crushed. We are seeing this once again the power being concentrated into the hands of a few mega rich who are wheeling political power.

The Merriam-Webster dictionary definition of Fascism is.

1. often capitalized :a political philosophy, movement, or regime (such as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition

We see this in the backlash over the black athletes protesting discrimination…”How un-American they are for not standing during the national anthem.” and the white supremacist, the hate speeches by Milo Yiannopoulos, and the rise of Breitbart News that is backed by billionaire Robert Mercer.

A little bit of history, do you remember the librarian party called the “John Bircher’s” they believed according to Wikipedia,

The organization supports limited government and opposes wealth redistribution and economic interventionism. It opposes collectivism, totalitarianism, anarchism and communism. It opposes socialism as well, which it asserts is infiltrating U.S. governmental administration.

Guess who one of the backers was?

Fred C. Koch, the father of the Koch brothers!

And the white supremacist movement is spreading around the world.

Nationalist protesters disrupt Poland independence day events
By Matthew Day, for CNN
November 12, 2017

Warsaw, Poland (CNN)Tens of thousands of nationalist protesters disrupted Poland's independence day events Saturday, waving flags and burning flares as they marched down the streets of Warsaw.

Demonstrators carried banners that read "White Europe, Europe must be white," and "Pray for an Islamic Holocaust."

Some wore masks and waved red and white Polish flags, chanting "Death to enemies of the homeland," and "Catholic Poland, not secular."
[…]
Police estimate that 60,000 people took part in the nationalist demonstration. While the vast majority were Poles, other protesters came from all over Europe.

In last year's march, nationalists burned flares as they
marched in large numbers through the streets of Warsaw AP

It is beginning again.

Not All Lovey-Dovey

Out in Minnesota not all the legislators are happy with the two trans candidates who were elected to the city council in Minneapolis, one state legislator had some nasty comments about them. Any guesses on what party the legislator is from?

Anti-transgender tweet draws criticism for Minnesota lawmaker
St. Cloud Times
BY Times Staff Reporter
November 11, 2017

MINNEAPOLIS — A Minnesota lawmaker is being criticized for her tweet about transgender people.

Republican Rep. Mary Franson, of Alexandria, posted a tweet on her personal Twitter account after two transgender candidates were elected to the Minneapolis City Council. The tweet read: "A guy who thinks he's a girl is still a guy with a mental health condition."

Minnesota DFL Party Chairman Ken Martin said in a statement that "Franson's hurtful remarks attempt to cheapen this historic victory and take the wind out of the sails of equality.”

She replied to the DFL Party Chairman comment,

Franson released a response to the backlash on her Facebook page, saying she "should have shown grace and not come across the way" she did.
[…]
She added that it's not the first time she's offended "social justice warriors and it won't be the last."

Like all the other trans candidates they kept their campaign about the issues.

Neither candidate made their gender identity a focal point of their campaigns. But Jenkins said their victories will "encourage young transgender people to keep on fighting, to keep on living, because we can be active and productive members of our community."

I think that it was to be expected that the Republicans  couldn’t handle the election of trans candidates, they can’t handle that the voters don’t go along with the hate that they are spewing against the LGBT community.

Saturday 9: Get Down Tonight

Crazy Sam’s Saturday 9: Get Down Tonight (1975)



On Saturdays I take a break from the heavy stuff and have some fun…

I am still having problems posting comment, I get a message “Publishing” but it doesn’t get posted. I posted on Blogger forum about the problem and I haven’t heard anything from Blogger but a number of other people also posted that they also are having problems.

Unfamiliar with this week's tune? Hear it here.

1) Tonight, KC has three things on his "to-do" list: do a little dance, make a little love and get down. Tell us three things you'd like to accomplish this weekend.
Finish the book that I’m reading, going to a holiday dinner tonight, and relaxing.

2) This week's song is considered emblematic of disco, a genre that had as many detractors as fans. Is there a kind of music you simply cannot stand?
The current genre. It seems like we like the music of our teenage years.

3) Before becoming a musician, KC, aka Harry Casey, worked in a record store. In those days, record stores were very popular. Peaches, Coconuts, Sam Goody and Tower Records are four store chains that once dotted the landscape but now are gone. Today, if you wanted to purchase a CD, where would you turn?
Yikes! I have no idea, I have been getting my music off the internet.

4) One of his duties at the record store was unloading the big corrugated shippers filled with LPs. What's the heaviest thing you've lifted lately?
A full propane tank.

5) KC is proud that he's lived his entire life in Miami-Dade County. Do you expect to change your address in the next year or so?
Nope, but I might be adding another address next spring.

6) In 1975, the year this song was popular, former Teamsters boss Jimmy Hoffa disappeared, never to be seen again. Many theories flourish about what may have happened to him. Is there a famous criminal case that has a hold on your attention?
No. I don’t follow murder or criminal cases.

7) Jaws was the most popular movie of 1975. Are you afraid of sharks?
Nope, I’m very unlikely to be anywhere sharks are; at least until spring when I’m looking to buy a place on Cape Cod.

8) Actress Angelina Jolie was born in 1975. People magazine once named her "most beautiful." Who is the most beautiful woman you can think of?
All these questions to get me in trouble, if I name someone everyone else will be mad at me.

9) Random question: A wizard offers you a choice -- would you like your life to stay as it is right now (in terms of your health, your career, your relationships and your finances) for the next 5 years, or would you like to take a chance that the future will be brighter?
I’ll take a chance on the future being brighter. After all half of what makes life interesting is not knowing what tomorrow will bring.

The Message Sent

Voters sent a powerful message not only against the current administration but also about not standing for the hate that the Republican party has been spewing. The voters have said that they don’t care if a person is black, Hispanic, gay or lesbian, or trans, they said that they will vote on the issues.

Minneapolis Transgender Pols: Wins Show Hatred Won't Stand
Two newly elected transgender members of the Minneapolis City Council say their historic wins are a victory for equality in the U.S.
US News & Reports
AP
Nov. 9, 2017

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Two newly elected transgender members of the Minneapolis City Council hugged, shared a high-five and enjoyed cheers from onlookers as they met at City Hall.
[…]
Cunningham says when voters found out he was transgender and black — and that his husband also is transgender — they said, "That's who I want to represent my neighborhood."

Jenkins says their election is a signal that "hatred and bigotry in this country will not stand."

---

Trans people have been elected before here in the US they just weren’t “out” and what is different now is that they are “out” and they still got elected.

Transgender people have been elected before. But they can finally let the voters know.
Washington Post
By Marwa Eltagouri
November 9, 2017

Tuesday was a historic night for the nation’s transgender community, which watched as at least six transgender people won elections and paved the way for others to join them in leadership positions in the coming years.
[…]
The key word in these landmark wins is “openly” — these transgender candidates aren’t the first to be voted into public office.

The difference, historians say, is that Roem, Jenkins, Cunningham, Middleton, Titus and Koontz all campaigned as transgender advocates and were open with voters about being transgender. Voters then elected them into their respective offices, in theory because they were the best candidates for the job.

Over two decades ago a trans woman was elected to the Massachusetts state legislature but she wasn’t “out.”

In 1992, former Boston Herald reporter Eric Fehrnstrom — who would later become a top aide and political strategist for Mitt Romney — outed Althea Garrison, a woman who had just been elected to the Massachusetts state legislature.

She has never publicly acknowledged her transgender status but is widely considered the first transgender black woman to hold public office.
[…]
Susan Stryker, an associate professor of gender and women’s studies at the University of Arizona, said that while Garrison was somewhat a perennial candidate — always running for something — she was ostracized and sidelined after the reporter made the revelation. At the time, it was unlikely for transgender people to have a public career, she said.

Other trans people have run and lost while some had legal problems that prevented them from serving their terms…

In 2012, Stacie Laughton became the first openly transgender legislator elected in New Hampshire. She never took her seat in the state’s House of Representatives, however, because news surfaced before her swearing in that she was a felon, according to the New Hampshire Union Leader. She pleaded guilty in 2008 to charges of fraudulent use of a credit card under the name Barry Charles Laughton Jr.

One thing is true is that we are going to see a lot trans and LGB candidates in the coming years.

The Rise Of Hate

I don’t think we need to be told that there has been a rise in violence directed toward LGBT people. Houses and cars have been sprayed painted with hate, bullying and harassments have increased along with a rise in murders.

Violence Against Transgender People Is on the Rise, Advocates Say
New York Times
By MaggieE Astor
November 9, 2017

Even as transgender people have scored political victories and turned public opinion in favor of more protections, violence has risen, especially against black and Hispanic transgender women. And Ms. Montez’s case shows the difficulties advocates face in tracking killings and other hate crimes.

The full death toll is impossible to determine, but by rights groups’ estimates, each of the past three years has become the deadliest on record.

The Human Rights Campaign has documented the killings of 25 transgender people in the United States so far in 2017, compared with 23 last year and 21 in 2015. Other organizations, like Glaad and the Transgender Law Center, have slightly different tallies, but the trend holds.

Transgender people have been killed this year in Chicago and in Waxahachie, Tex.; in the Ozarks of Missouri and on the sidewalks of Manhattan. They have been shot, stabbed, burned and, in at least one case, pushed into a river. On average, one to two have been killed somewhere in the United States every week.

Some people say that only 25 trans women have been killed compared to all the murders here in the U.S. but consider we are only about 0.5% of the population and also the murders were not caused by a family dispute, the were not caused during a crime but rather they were committed because of hate. Many were committed after the murderer had sex with the victim and in a transphobic rage of self-hate kills the woman.

Other acts of violence have been spurred by the climate of hate that political leaders have created.

Almost all the murder victims in the past several years have been nonwhite women. According to the National Center for Health Statistics, the annual murder rate for Americans ages 15 to 34 is about one in 12,000. But an investigation by the news organization Mic found that for black transgender women in the same age group, the rate was one in 2,600.

For many trans women they live on the edges of society because they might have been disowned and thrown out of their family at an early age. Many have not completed their education because of bullying and harassment in schools and they had to make their living off the street.

Hate Rejected

After the elections Tuesday hate once again reared its ugly head, a Christian raised the question about trans women and children… “What do we tell the children?”

Christians Took to Twitter to Rebuke This Man's Tweet About a Transgender Politician
Time
By Ashley Hoffman
November 8, 2017

One man’s question for Christians about a transgender politician has quickly backfired.

After Democrat Danica Roem became Virginia’s first openly transgender elected official, defeating incumbent Del. Robert G. Marshall on Tuesday, one Nashville man took to Twitter with a question.

Andrew T. Walker, the director for the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, appeared to voice concern about how Christian parents would prepare their children for the history-making news.

“Christian parents, the nation’s first transgender elected official enters into American history tonight. What are you doing to prepare your children for this new world?” he asked in a tweet Tuesday night.
[…]
Walker’s tweet quickly spread on the wings of critics blasting him for his question, as many of the responses invoked scripture. His original tweet has garnered nearly 6,000 responses and 289 retweets as of Wednesday.

And the answers he received are beautiful!

Good question. Here's a possible answer: everyone, no matter who they are or what they look like, is a beloved child of God, with infinite dignity and beauty, and should be reverenced as a beautiful creation.

Christian parent here. We're celebrating. We're preparing our son to embrace difference, not fear or discriminate against it.

Tell them that if they are trans, they too can run for elected office and beat transphobic bigots

I’m a Jewish parent. I’ve already prepared my son by teaching him not to be a narrow-minded hate-filled bigot.

Teaching my surviving child that Christians should love everyone. Unequivocally. Like Jesus did.

I'd tell them: God is great. The diversity of our nation is its' strength, and that good people stand against small-minded bigotry

And there were many more comments that the article mentions. I imagine that the original tweet by Mr. Walker got a lot of people support his hate in the 6000+ comments but I am glad that those who believe in love spoke up.

To bad that the Time article didn’t allow comments it what have been interesting to see what the haters had to say about love.

Breaking News!

I just had a phone call from a reporter for the Stamford Advocate asking me if I knew if Raven Matherne was the first trans person elected to office in Connecticut? Hun? I said as far as I know she is the first “out” trans person elected in Connecticut.

Matherne becomes Stamford’s first transgender lawmaker
By Liz Skalka
November 8, 2017

STAMFORD — The city’s first openly transgender lawmaker was voted into office Tuesday, a milestone for the local LGBTQ community that was among the victories transgender candidates won nationwide on Election Day.

Raven Matherne, 29, who is believed to be the state’s first transgender lawmaker, won a seat on Stamford’s Board of Representatives. She ran as part of the Reform Stamford slate that sought political change on the 40-member board.
[…]
Matherne said she ran on issues that impact her constituents, such as rising property taxes and fewer public services for residents in her wooded North Stamford district, and not necessarily that she was the first transgender person seeking a seat on the board. Reform Stamford presented a platform focused on taxes, community-minded development, enforcing zoning laws, affordable housing and protecting public spaces.

“Whether you believe taxes are high or not, they are rising,” she said. “Then when (homeowners) get to the point where they can’t afford to live in Stamford anymore, their property values are going down.”

As I said in yesterday’s post, “What I like about these wins is that except for Ms. Roem election all of them were in local races; a school board election, and two city council elections.” Little did I know that there was a trans candidate running here in Connecticut!

Who’s On First?

Or when a tree falls in the woods does it make a sound?

Or when a trans woman is elected to office and no one knew that she was trans does that make her the first trans woman elected to office?

Before Danica Roem, Althea Garrison was the first trans woman elected to state legislature in 1992
Daily Kos
By Wagatwe
November 8, 2017

Last night, Democrat Danica Roem was elected to Virginia’s House of Delegates—making her the first trans woman to serve in the state’s legislature. While this is a historic win, it’s important for us to use proper context. Many people (and news organizations) have been saying Roem’s the first transgender women in US history to serve in a state legislature.

That is not correct.

Meet Althea Garrison. She was elected to Massachusetts’s state legislature in 1992 and served for one term from 1993-1995.

In 2012 post at the blog TransGriot, Monica Roberts writes a little bit about Garrison’s history.

Althea Garrison was born in Hahira, GA on October 7, 1940 and moved to Boston to attend beauty school.  She went on to enroll at Newbury Junior College and received an associate's degree. Garrison later received a B.S. degree in administration from Suffolk University, an M.S. degree in management from Lesley College and a certificate in special studies in administration and management from Harvard University in 1984.

Although Althea has never publicly announced her trans status or talked about it, we are aware that people who transitioned during that more restrictive HBIDGA era were advised to never let anyone know their trans status and live their lives. In 1976 her name change petition was approved and filed in the Suffolk County Courthouse"consistent with [her] appearance and medical condition."

Offering a friendly reminder to keep an accurate account of our history. Black and trans people are often overlooked and actively erased from the history books. Let’s do our part to actively combat that.

So what it boils down to is a matter of semantics. Danica Roem was the first “out” trans woman elected to office.

I think Danica Roem’s election was a more important one, everyone knew that she was trans and it didn’t matter to the vote. I am not says Althea Garrison election was important, she still is the first trans elected to office but the fact that she wasn’t out does make a difference.

Hate Still Rear Its Ugly Head

Even with all the good election news about trans candidates winning across the country, the Trump administration is still on its anti-LGBT campaign to eradicate us.

USDA issues ‘religious advisory’ that okays anti-LGBTQ speech by employees
LGBTQ Nation
By Bil Browning
November 7, 2017

The United States Department of Agriculture has posted a “religious advisory” on their website that amounts to a blatant license to discriminate against LGBTQ people. In fact, it’s so specific the only topics specifically mentioned in the memo are “same-sex marriage, gender identity, and sexual morality.”

The Trump administration has systematically tried to destroy nondiscrimination protections for LGBTQ people throughout the government. Within hours of his inauguration, websites were being scrubbed of all mentions of LGBTQ rights.

The website’s Q&A about “First Amendment and Religious Beliefs” asks the question, “Does the Secretary’s First Amendment Policy encompass speech regarding same-sex marriage, gender identity, and sexual morality?”

Opinions about same-sex marriage, gender identity, and sexual morality are all matters of public importance. Moreover, people often have different perspectives on these topics, which are sometimes informed by their religious beliefs, and feel the need to discuss them. USDA respects the First Amendment rights of USDA personnel, as well as non-USDA personnel working at facilities inspected by USDA, to share their varying viewpoints on these topics, whether through oral discussion, the display or distribution of literature, or other means.

The Supreme Court is going to be hearing a case on Religious Freedom; the Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Purdue  has  not based the statement on legal opinions but on the religious bias of the USDA Secretary.

Wow! I Didn’t See This Coming.

Overnight the election results have been coming in and I was expecting a trans candidate to win but this is amazing!

Transgender candidate wins, makes history in California
USA Today
By Jesse Marx
November 8, 2017

PALM SPRINGS, Calif. — Lisa Middleton made history Tuesday night by becoming the first transgender person elected to a non-judicial office in California, joining Christy Holstege, a young attorney, in victory to the City Council.

Although not all the ballots had been counted, the gap between the top vote-getters and the others was significant. Shortly before 10 p.m. PT, Henry Hampton, who came in a distant third, conceded.

"It's all because of all of you that we are here tonight, celebrating a victory, a historic victory for our city and for our state," Middle told supporters around 9 p.m.

* * * * *

Night of change for Minneapolis City Council as first transgender candidate wins
Andrea Jenkins' victory was a national first for a transgender woman of color. 
Star Tribune
By Emma Nelson
November 8, 2017

Andrea Jenkins, who won the Minneapolis Ward 8 City Council race is the first transgender woman of color elected to public office in the nation.

The Minneapolis City Council was poised for historic change Tuesday as voters elected the city’s first transgender council member, on a night that saw a handful of veteran council members from across the city struggling to hold on against strong challenges.

“I’m feeling elated. Ecstatic. Extraordinarily happy right now,” Andrea Jenkins, who becomes the first transgender woman of color elected to public office in a major U.S. city, said from her election night party at Curran’s Restaurant. “I’m really, really deeply proud of my community.”

* * * * *

Tyler Titus wins seat to become first transgender person elected in Pennsylvania
PennLive
By Candy Woodall
November 7, 2017

Tyler Titus, a candidate for Erie School Board, on Tuesday became the first openly transgender person elected to office in Pennsylvania.

The 33-year-old father of two boys successfully campaigned for one of four open seats on the board.

* * * * *

Dems unseat GOP in slew of Va. delegate races; Roem will become 1st transgender House member
WTOP
By Jack Moore
November 7, 2017

In one of the most closely watched races, Democrat Danica Roem, a local journalist, defeated Republican Del. Bob Marshall in Virginia’s 13th District, which includes parts of Prince William County and Manassas Park.

Roem, who carried 54 percent of the vote, made history as the first openly transgender elected official in Virginia history.

Roem made transportation improvements, including widening lanes and removing stoplights on Route 28 in Centreville, a key part of her campaign. But her gender identity drew national attention to the race.

Marshall, who introduced Virginia’s version of the so-called “bathroom bill,” refused to debate Roem and referred to her using male pronouns.

* * * * *

What I like about these wins is that except for Ms. Roem election all of them were in local races; a school board election, and two city council elections. Why do I like the fact that they were local elections? It is because they are more visible and usually it is a more “hands-on” door to door elections, it is also a good way to start a political career.

---

Update 3:50 PM

From the HRC website...

Gerri Cannon, New Hampshire (Somersworth School Board)
Cannon joined the Somersworth School Board yesterday. According to her LinkedIn page, she is planning on running for New Hampshire State Representative.

Stephe Koontz, Georgia (Doraville City Council)
Koontz won a spot on her hometown city council, becoming her city’s first openly transgender elected official.

SHE DID IT!

Danica Roem won!

She was elected to the Virginia House of Delegates!

Danica Roem is Va.’s first openly transgender elected official, unseating conservative in House race
Washington Post
By Antonio Olivo
November 7 at 8:25 PM

Democrat Danica Roem ousted longtime incumbent Del. Robert G. Marshall (R) Tuesday, becoming the first openly transgender elected official in Virginia — and one of very few in the nation.

The race between Roem, 33, and Marshall, 73, focused on traffic and other local issues in Prince William County but also exposed the nation’s fault lines over gender identity. It pitted a local journalist who began her physical gender transition four years ago against an outspoken social conservative who has referred to himself as Virginia’s “chief homophobe” earlier this year introduced a “bathroom bill” that died in committee.

“For 26 years I’ve been proud to fight for you, and fight for our future,” Marshall said in a message posted on Facebook Tuesday night. “Though we all wish tonight would have turned out differently, I am deeply grateful for your support and effort over the years.

“I’m committed to continue the fight for you, but in a different role going forward.”

The Republican bigot lost bigtime, Mr. Marshall has been in office since 1991! Ms. Roem won by around 10 points.

A cable television ad by Marshall’s campaign questioned Roem’s moral judgment with brief footage from a five-year-old music video she appeared in with her band. A scene from the video, which did not appear fully in the ad, is suggestive of a group of people having oral sex.

A state Republican Party flier accused Roem of “wanting transgenderism taught to kindergartners” — a reference to a radio interview in which she supported the idea of addressing lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender matters in schools “in an age-appropriate manner.”

Quentin Kidd, director of the Wason Center for Public Policy at Christopher Newport University, said Marshall may have erred in making too much of Roem’s transgender identity while refusing to participate in public-policy debates.

Congratulations Danica Roem, a well-deserved victory.

Justice Is Served... Hopefully

A man has been convicted of murdering a trans woman down in Texas and is scheduled to hear his sentence.

Man found guilty of murder in transgender woman's death
KVUE
November 06, 2017

AUSTIN - JonCasey Rowell -- the man who shot and killed a transgender woman in 2016 -- has been found guilty of murder, a jury found Monday.

Around 3 a.m. on Jan 22, 2016, Rowell shot and killed Monica Loera at her home, which is located along East Powell Lane. When police arrived at the scene, they discovered an ID card that belonged to Rowell and some money. Police then identified Rowell as the prime suspect.
[…]
He said there were searches on Google for "how to get away with murder," and on Backpage.com there were searches for "transsexual escorts." One was made on Jan. 22 at 2 a.m. Authorities say Loera was murdered about one hour later. Following her murder, there were clicks to news articles regarding the fatal shooting in North Austin.

As I wrote about yesterday, many men fantasize about having sex with a trans woman and then becomes transphobic about having sex with her.

Let us hope that the judge hands down a harsh sentence on him and doesn’t insult us with a slap of the hand for the killer.

Could This Be Our Year?

There are more candidates running this year than ever before; the big race is in Virginia where a trans candidate has a very good chance of winning.

Virginia Could Elect An Openly Transgender Legislator Tomorrow
Huffington Post
By Sarah McBride, Contributor National Press Secretary, Human Rights Campaign
November 6, 2017

Zero.

Out of the nearly 7,400 state legislators across the United States, today in America, exactly zero identify as transgender. Despite historic progress toward greater visibility and inclusion of transgender people throughout public life, our representation in positions of political power lag woefully behind. Today, there are roughly one and a half million transgender Americans, including thousands of transgender youth across Virginia — and yet they see no one like them in any state legislature anywhere in the country.

Next Tuesday, that could change. Danica Roem could make history. If elected to represent the 13th House District in Northern Virginia, she will become the first openly transgender person to be elected to and serve in a state legislature in our nation’s history.

Roem, a former journalist and native of Prince William County, has run a campaign based on smart policy ideas and real issues affecting her district, from expanding economic opportunity to addressing the congestion on Route 28. She’s spent nearly every day for the last several months knocking on doors and meeting voters, all the while facing disgusting attacks on her identity from the 25-year incumbent she faces on the ballot.

Roem’s opponent, Bob Marshall, has ditched facts and substance to run a campaign based almost entirely on hate and fear, attempting to use Danica’s very existence as a trans person as a weapon against her.

I think that Bob Marshall is feeling the burn; I think he realizes that he could lose the election to his nightmare; I think that the voters realize that hate is wrong.

Meanwhile across the country…

Transgender candidates hope to make history in California
Mercury News
By Casey Tolan Bay Area News Group
November 5, 2017

When Lisa Middleton was a 12-year-old living in East Los Angeles, she checked out a book at the library about Christine Jorgensen, a World War II veteran who became the first person to publicly go through sex reassignment surgery. It was after devouring those pages that a wide-eyed Middleton first realized she was transgender.

Fifty years later, Middleton is hoping to make her own history. On Tuesday, she’ll be on the ballot in a City Council race in Palms Springs, and could become the first openly transgender person elected to political office in California.

She’s part of what activists describe as a new wave of transgender candidates running for local, state and federal offices around the U.S. in the wake of President Donald Trump’s election and anti-transgender policies gaining traction in some states.

Lisa Middleton, a former insurance manager and auditor, is running for the City Council in Palm Springs and could become the first transgender person elected to political office in California. (Courtesy of Lisa Middleton)

“We have been the preferred target of conservative forces,” Middleton said in a recent interview. “If transgender people are being attacked, you need transgender voices to respond to those attacks.”

We have teeth and we bite!

We run on issues, not hate.

As a council member, Middleton is hoping to focus on issues like homelessness and renewable energy, including passing a requirement that all new residential buildings in the city have solar panels. While she does talk on the campaign trail about being transgender, it’s not something she often focuses on, she said. “Most everyone in this town knows who I am and knows that fact, and there’s usually not the need to bring it up,” she said.

I think the voters are looking for issue candidates and running a campaign on hate will not work anymore. Let’s hope that the voters feel the same way.

Vote!

Today we are having local elections around the state, I’m not going to tell you who to vote for but I am going to tell you to go out and vote!

Connecticut is unique; I don’t know how many states do it but here in Connecticut if you vote for a third party candidate who is also the Republican or Democratic tickets the candidate receives the total number of votes.

If…
John Doe is running on the Democratic Party line and receives 1000 votes.
Joe Doe (his brother) is running on the Republican Party line and receives 2500 votes
But if John Doe is also on the Green Party line and receives 1600 votes
Then John Doe wins with 2600 votes compared to his brother’s 2500 votes.

Why is this important?

First you are not “wasting” your vote by voting for a third party candidate and second you can send a message that you like the third party platform better than the major party’s platform.

It Is Deadly Out There

The odds are still in our favor that we will come back home at night in one piece but there is always that chance that hate will find you. Most of us live our lives in peace but there are people out there that hate our guts and want to do bodily harm to us. But all it takes in one bigot set on violence.

Brothers Charged With A Hate Crime After Tag-Team Assault On Transgender Teen
Cody and Shane Thomas had allegedly been harassing their 19-year-old victim for weeks before the incident.
NewNowNext
By Samantha Manzella
11/4/201

Two brothers in upstate New York have been charged with third-degree assault as a hate crime after heckling and beating a 19-year-old transgender woman.

Police say Cody Thomas, 18, and Shane Thomas, 27, of Oswego County shouted slurs at the unnamed teen for weeks leading up to the assault.

On Wednesday, the brothers allegedly saw her riding a bike and pulled up alongside her and got out of the car. According to reports, Shane proceeded to assault the teenager. An hour later, after seeing the same woman again, Cody pulled over and assaulted her, as well.

The article says they both have been released from custody and it doesn’t say why or under what circumstances they were.

Another article this time in Syacuse.com said,

State police announced the arrest of the Thomas brothers Thursday evening. They were arraigned in the Town of Volney Court and released on their own recognizance, troopers said.

Another article also in the Syacuse.com said,

FULTON, N.Y. -- One of the brothers accused of assaulting a transgender teenager in Oswego County has been charged with sending a nude photo to a child.

Cody A. Thomas, 18, of 312 S. 7th St., Fulton, was arrested Thursday afternoon by the Oswego County Sheriff's Office. He used Facebook to send a naked photo to a child younger than 17 years old, deputies said.

Thomas was charged with second-degree disseminating indecent material to a minor, a felony, and endangering the welfare of a child, a misdemeanor. He was arraigned in Volney Town Court and released.

I can’t believe that they were only changed with third-degree assault when they have been harassing the woman for weeks and then they stopped and beat her, they then came back and beat her again! This was premeditated.

If I find you beenn creepin' 'round my back stairs*

For trans women dating is like getting hit by lighting, it happens but it is very rare. Like any dating situation there can be an element of risk in meeting someone from online and for us the risk is even greater because many men what to keep it a secret that they are dating a trans woman.

The Ridiculous Straight Panic Over Dating a Transgender Person
The right-wing media froth that trans people are demanding straight men date them. No, we just want a nuanced discussion about why so many straight men feel shame about dating us.
The Daily Beast
By Samantha Allen
November 4, 2017

[…]
Orange is the New Black star and transgender advocate Laverne Cox recently opened up to Attitude about the phenomenon of straight men who date transgender women but want to “keep us a secret,” calling those men “insecure as f*ck” for fearing that society will perceive them as gay.

This is a real, urgent problem that many transgender women have to face—and one that our community’s best writers, like author Janet Mock, have eloquently explored. But it doesn’t take long for some readers to react as if transgender women are trying to make it compulsory to date us.

So it was sadly unsurprising when that Laverne Cox interview got quoted on another news site beneath the headline: “Laverne Cox says men who are ashamed of dating trans women are ‘insecure as f*ck.’”

The author goes on to say,

I went to a popular Southern transgender conference to gather information, connect with medical providers, and hopefully make a few friends. What I wasn’t anticipating were the countless men hanging around the hotel lobby, covertly trying to find a bedtime companion.

They wanted us so badly that they found out which weekend the conference was in town and drove here—but they were still ashamed to flirt with us somewhere more public.

There is a name that we call men like that “trannie chasers.” I don’t have any problems with men who are seeking trans women as long as the sex is consensual by adults, but what I do have a problem with is their guilt trip that ends up violently with us either being dead or injured.

Many times when their friends find out that they are dating trans women they take their transphobia out on us. There are currently 25 trans women who were murdered this year, many times it is by a man that they have been dating.

Take care out there.

*Gordon Lightfoot’s Sundown

What Is New Is Really Old

For many trans people changing their documentation is a right of passage; we look forward to changing our name and then our Social Security ID, driver license, and birth certificate. However back in the 1930s over in Germany you could also get an ID card.

Berthe, later Berthold, Buttgereit’s travel pass makes no mention of tranvestitism. But “B.B. is not forbidden to wear man’s clothes” was written on the back. LANDESARCHIV BERLIN/LAB A REP. 341-04 NR. 1087

The Early 20th-Century ID Cards That Kept Trans People Safe From Harassment
The radical days of the Weimar Republic, just before the rise of Nazism.
Atlas Obscura
By Natasha Frost
November 02, 2017


atharina T., a resident of Berlin in the early 20th century, had a deep voice and masculine appearance, and preferred to wear men’s clothing at home and in public. In 1908, they—there’s no record of which pronoun Katharina preferred—went to visit the sexual reformer and “sexologist” Magnus Hirschfeld, to apply for official documentation that would allow them to wear men’s clothing in public: a “transvestite pass.”

Perhaps dozens of these passes were granted by German police between 1909 and 1933, the year Adolf Hitler became chancellor. The term “transvestitism” at that time encompassed people of all gender identities, from those who occasionally wore men’s or women’s clothes on weekends, to those who today might well identify instead as transgender, a term that was not in common usage at the time. Cross-dressing individuals were vulnerable to arbitrary decisions of the police, usually according to how well they “passed.” While it wasn’t illegal to cross-dress, per se, the practice often led to charges of being a “public nuisance,” which could mean six weeks’ imprisonment or a fine of 150 marks—and police were “often keen to exercise their extensive regulatory powers,” writes historian Kate Caplan in “The Administration of Gender Identity in Nazi Germany,” a 2011 paper in History Workshop Journal.

Back then as now the proper ID could make life easier, but like now you had to be able to afford the documents.

Just back in the 50s, 60s and 70s you could get arrested for not wearing three items of clothing of your birth gender and we rebelled when police raided bars and cafeterias to check for “deviants.” Now the oppression is being renewed by the current administration and it is beginning to look like the 1930s again.

The picture of the brown shirts burning the books of the Hirschfeld’s Institute of Sex Research is now being repeated with the “white shirts” of white supremacist.

A member of the paramilitary Nazi Sturmabteilung throws confiscated books into a bonfire during the public burning of “un-German” books in Berlin in 1933. PUBLIC DOMAIN

The Future Is Not Good!

Do you remember that the Republican Congress did vote on not only Obama’s Supreme Court pick but also all the lower court appointments, well now the Republicans are wasting no time in packing the courts with Bible thumping anti-LGBT judges.

The Senate Is Falling Over Itself to Fill Courts with Donald Trump’s Extremist Anti-LGBT Judges
By Lambda Legal
November 2, 2017

Senator Mitch McConnell continued his push to deliver to President Trump four highly controversial, anti-civil rights, and anti-LGBT judicial nominees to federal courts of appeals.

Casting aside even the appearance of careful deliberation, the Senate today confirmed the remaining two nominees placed on the agenda for this week – Allison H. Eid to the U.S. Court of Appeals to the Tenth Circuit and Stephanos Bibas to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.

While she “eschews labels,” Justice Eid has been described in the Denver Post as being cut from the same cloth as Justices Scalia and Thomas, whose “originalist” philosophy would essentially write LGBT people out of the Constitution. And, Professor Bibas has criticized those who “pursue equality judicially,” claiming that it “undervalues America’s deep commitments to federalism, localism, and democratic self-government.”

Eid and Bibas will now join on the federal bench Amy Coney Barrett who was confirmed to the Seventh Circuit and Joan Larsen who was confirmed to the Sixth Circuit, both this week.

These judges put the Bible above the Constitution.

---

A Louisiana appellate court shoots down the governor’s LGBT inclusion in the discrimination laws.

Appeals court upholds ruling that Gov. Edwards overstepped with LGBT rights order
The Advocate
By Mark Ballard
November 1, 2017

An appellate court panel found Wednesday that Gov. John Bel Edwards went too far when trying to ban discrimination against transgender people in state government.

The case has been part of an ongoing battle over authority and budget between the Democratic governor and Republican Attorney General Jeff Landry.

The three-judge panel, led by First Circuit Court of Appeal Judge Toni M. Higginbotham, of Baton Rouge, unanimously ruled that Edwards had interfered with the authority of the legislative branch. His April 2016 order included “gender identity” protection within the state’s executive branch agencies, including those headed by elected officials, as well as the private companies seeking to do business with state government.

“Clearly, the Louisiana Legislature and the people of the State of Louisiana have not yet revised the laws and/or the state Constitution to specifically add ‘sexual orientation’ or ‘gender identity’,” stated the opinion written by Higginbotham.

She was joined by Judges Allison H. Penzato, of Mandeville, and Guy Holdridge, of Gonzalez. All three judges were elected as Republicans.

This is what we have to look forward to, judges that ignore case law and vote their bigotry.

Beginning with the Supreme Court decision in 1989 with the Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins ruling that sex discrimination also includes sex stereotyping up to the Missouri Court of Appeals that said “If the employer mistreats a male employee because the employer deems the employee insufficiently masculine, it is immaterial whether the male employee is gay or straight…”

We have more cases like the Louisiana to look forward to about the courts gets packed with conservative judges.

Saturday 9: Suddenly I See (2005)

Saturday 9: Suddenly I See (2005)



On Saturdays I take a break from the heavy stuff and have some fun…

I am still having problems posting comment, I get a message “Publishing” but it doesn’t get posted. I posted on Blogger forum about the problem and I haven’t heard anything from Blogger but a number of other people also posted that they also are having problems


Unfamiliar with this week's tune? Hear it here.

1) This song is a tribute to Patti Smith, the rocker who inspired KT Tunstall. What woman who has inspired you?
Well my mother was a big influence on me.

2) In this video, you can see a turntable and an LP. When is the last time you played a record?
Oh… long, long time ago. But I have been thinking fixing my turntable, it needs new belts because it is over 40 years old.

3) Growing up, Ms. Tunstall seldom sang at home because her father is severely hearing impaired and music interfered with his sensitive hearing aid. Do you, or does anyone in your family, wear a hearing aid?
My father used to wear them but his insurance covered the $1500 price tag for $10 worth of electronics.

4) In high school, she got experience performing on street corners. Have you ever tipped a street musician?
Yes, but not often enough.

5) When this song was popular, Microsoft introduced the Xbox 360 to North America. Are you into gaming?
Nope. I like board games and on the first Tuesday of each month I meet with a group of women to play board games.
I’m also trying to learn a program where you can write text adventure games.

6)  In 2005, Prince Charles married his long-time love, Camilla Parker Bowles. At the time of their wedding, 73% of Brits said they disapproved of her. Today, her popularity has increased somewhat and her disapproval has dropped to 55%. Do you know anyone who married someone you didn't like? Did their spouse grow on you with time?
No comment. I want to keep the peace.

7) Harry Potter ad the Goblet of Fire was popular in theaters. Who is your favorite "Harry Potter" character?
Hermione

8) In 2005, YouTube was introduced by three young men who met while working at PayPal. What's the last thing you paid for using PayPal?
I have no idea, but the non-profit that I’m the head of uses PayPal.

9) Random Question: After a long, exhausting day of travel, you check into a motel. The room is not at all to your liking. It's next to the ice machine, so you can hear cubes dropping noisily into metal buckets. Your view is of the parking lot. The bathtowels and thin and tiny. In short, you feel like you're being ripped off. Do you grab your bag, turn on your heel and check out, hoping there are better accommodations nearby? Or do you say, "What the hell, it's only one night," and climb into bed?
I don’t think any of those things would bother me except the ice machine but I never had that problem because I think that new motels isolate the machines from rooms.

Bullying And Harassment Takes A Toll On Us

The constant bullying and harassment or the fear of it takes a toll in us health wise, it’s not being trans that affects us but rather social pressures.

Mental health of transgender people is under increasing pressure, study finds
Press Telegram
By Anna Gorman, California Healthline
November 2, 2017

[...]
Oliva’s [a 45-year-old transgender woman] experience is strikingly consistent with the findings of a new report from UCLA that shows transgender adults in California are more likely to have suicidal thoughts than other adults in the state, and more likely to have attempted suicide.

They are also more likely than their non-transgender peers to face severe psychological distress and to be disabled because of a physical or mental health condition, the report found.

The mental health gap is worrisome because it points to ongoing discrimination and bias, the study’s authors said.

The data — released Tuesday as part of the annual UCLA California Health Interview Survey — highlight health disparities among a marginalized population. The survey, a collaboration between the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research and the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law, covers demographics, access to health care and health status.
[…]
Chung [senior director of strategic projects for the Oakland-based Transgender Law Center] said she would like to see better answers to explain the differences in mental health — especially given the demographic similarities between transgender and non-transgender populations. “What actually sets them apart in terms of the health outcomes?” she asked. “What is the reason for the higher rates of suicide attempts?”

As the article said “…health disparities among a marginalized population…” we are not alone all marginalized communities have health disparities because of the discrimination they face not only by the healthcare providers but all by society; blacks face it every day they walk out of the house will I make back home today. Many trans people face it when we walk out of the house each day. We wonder what will happen if we call 911? Will become a victim just by calling for help?

All that as stress in our lives and stress effects our health.

Do You Use Twitter?

I don’t, but many trans people do and some of them have been running into Twitter censors.

Twitter Has a Transgender Problem
New York Times
By Thorne N. Melcher
November 2, 2017

Following the tragic events in Las Vegas last month, as the gun debate reached new heights of intensity, I joined the fray. Though in favor of increased gun control, I spoke out on Twitter in support of transgender people being able to arm ourselves in self-defense — because, I felt, our newly heightened levels of visibility have led to increased levels of violence against us.

One of my tweets took off. What resulted was a multiday, multi-pronged onslaught of harassment from not only gun-control activists but groups who target transgender people. Ultimately, after days of doing nothing while other users hurled slurs and made threats, Twitter finally took action: It suspended me for 12 hours after I said one of those users was “garbage” for trying to incite further harassment.

If this was an isolated incident, this could be written off as a mistake. But it isn’t just that Twitter makes it easy for users to abuse certain targets with impunity. Pushing back — as the actress Rose McGowan found just days after I did — routinely invites suspensions from the Twitter safety team. This pattern of harassment followed by punishment is particularly acute for transgender users, who are often targets for abuse and for whom the abuse can have serious consequences.
[…]
The result of all this is a dangerous power imbalance — it’s often the harassed who pushed back, not the harassers, who find their tweets deleted and their accounts suspended. This imbalance affects the trans community disproportionately: Transgender users who are active on Twitter are often targeted by everyone from social conservatives to so-called feminists espousing transphobic views in the name of “protecting” cisgender women.

This is so typical of bullies, we get picked on and then when we either fight back or comment we are the ones who get “disciplined.”

In schools we get suspended after many pushes, shoves, verbal abuse by the bully so we pushback or say something and wham we get suspended, meanwhile the bully walks away claiming to be a victim. The same goes for Twitter and Facebook, I know of a number of trans people who were put in Facebook prison.

Many times it is not a human making the call,

Twitter’s exact processes for handling abuse reports are a secret, but the company announced earlier this year that many of them are handled algorithmically — servers with not-so-carefully calibrated formulae analyze the reports for signs of harassment. Profanity is treated more seriously than slurs and threats — the mere presence of vulgarity in a reply is often enough, especially when blue checkmarks are involved. (One of the tweets the service flagged when I was suspended, for instance, contained a curse word, though it wasn’t directed at my harasser.) Mass reporting tweets in bad faith, a common tactic of Twitter harassers, is often enough to get a user blocked.

Our haters have learned how to work the “system” in their favor we have to wise up and learn how to work Facebook and Twitter in our favor and don’t fall into the trap that the trolls set for us.

We Were Just Talking About This

At the meeting yesterday afternoon we were talking about how we need more trans candidates to run for office. Here in Connecticut we have a trans candidate for governor Jacey Wyatt.

Out for votes: Battle over rights inspires more U.S. transgender candidates
Reuters
By Letitia Stein
October 31, 21017

(Reuters) - Virginia Democrat Danica Roem has been called a man by conservative opponents attacking her views on LGBT rights as she campaigns to become the United States’ only transgender state legislator.

U.S. elections this year could double the country’s number of transgender officeholders, currently at six, according to the Victory Fund, which works to elect lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender candidates. The group has endorsed eight transgender candidates up for election this fall.

A transgender man and woman are running for city council in Minneapolis. A mayoral race in Midvale, Utah, and school board contest in Erie, Pennsylvania, are among the other contests with transgender candidates.

Nearly 30 races in the 2017-18 election cycle already have a transgender candidate, up from 13 in 2015-16, according to Logan Casey, a research associate at Harvard University tracking them.

I think Ms. Roem is doing the right thing, running on local issues and letting her opponent sound like a raving hate monger. As they say all politics are local.

So my suggestions for anyone who is thinking about running for office start local. Run for town selectman, an alderman, Board of Ed, or other local office. Establish your name in politics, for one thing it is easier to raise money locally and the amount that you raise doesn’t have to be in the millions.

Here in Connecticut we have one of the best campaign schools in the nation, Campaign School for Social Workers. People come from all over the United States to attend the two day workshop. When I went to the school it was free for UConn School of Social Work students now I believe that there is a fee for students. I went to it in the spring of 2011 while we were working to pass the gender inclusive non-discrimination bill.

In 2007 I attended the Grassroots Organizing, New York Power Summit, National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, at the State University of New York College at Old Westbury NY where they taught how to organizing house parties, phone banks and door – to – door canvassing, it was a two and a half day workshop. I remember we had to organize a door – to – door canvas of a neighborhood on Long Island for a candidate, it was bitter cold and since I had a car I drove my squad around and kept the car nice and hot for them to get warm in. The following day we had a blizzard.

I hope those who are reading this will stop and take a minute and think about running for office.

Come Out, Come Out

But be ready to pay the price and the price that you pay can be steep… your life.

Every time we step out the door we are being an activist; you are saying I’m trans and I’m proud!

The Price of Visibility
Transgender Universe
By Clara Barnhurst
October 28, 2017

How much do we risk for being visibly transgender? Unfortunately, far too much - but can we afford invisibility?

“That’s a controversial thing to wear,” a friend of mine told me. She was one of the community support officers for the local police in charge of reaching out to the LGBT+ community: dealing with hate crime, outreach etc. She was giving me a lift home from a party, not acting in an official capacity.
[…]
Fear of visibility permeates the transgender community. People who were invisible find themselves more visible, and they are afraid. Some who still are invisible are staring at visibility with trepidation; worried about what will happen to them if their lives cross over to a point where they can’t remain invisible. There is a whole section of the transgender community that lives entirely separate from their fellows. It’s their choice, but they should feel free to come back out and rejoin us if they wish to and they are too afraid to consider that an option - or they choose to live with that fear as they connect with other transgender people.
[…]
I say in my articles again and again that I will remain visible as a political act, and it is, as paltry as it sounds. In this climate, visibility is a revolutionary thing; a dangerous thing. Area woman attacked by a passer by, woman found guilty of being herself in public.

I am an out trans woman.

In the class that I taught Tuesday and today I said if you cannot tell I’m trans get a hearing aid and glasses!

Someone said that I should go a class on voice training and famine body language and wear more make-up. I said for sixty years I pretended to be a man and I am not going to start to pretend to be a woman, I am going to be myself. And you know what? People do not care if I’m trans.

I hear other trans people say that they “pass” and I think do they really pass or do people just don’t care?

The number one rule is be safe. I do not want to tell anyone to come out, it is your personal decision and no one should force anyone out.   

A Skirmish Win

We didn’t win a battle but we won the right to be in the battle, a judge ruled that the police harassment case can proceed.

Supreme Court will not hear this police department's appeal in transgender harassment suit
NJ.com
By Michaelangelo Conte
October 31, 2017

JERSEY CITY -- A lawsuit filed by a transgender man who said he was threatened and harassed by Jersey City police after being arrested remains on track for trial now that the state Supreme Court has refused to hear an appeal filed by police.

"It gives our client the opportunity now to have his trial and get in front of a jury and have this tried on the merits," attorney Deborah Mains said today of her client, Shakeem Malik Holmes.

Holmes sued the Jersey City Police Department in 2014 over an August 2012 incident in which he was subjected to "demeaning, insulting and threatening comments," because he is a transgender man, according to the suit.

Holmes had been arrested on a shoplifting charge, which was later dismissed, New Jersey Law Journal reported. He had already legally changed his name from Malika Sakinah Holmes and was in the process of transitioning from female to male when he was at the police department's Bureau of Criminal Identification that day.

For me this is our worst nightmare being harassed while in custody, there is nothing that we can do about, we are trapped and are at the mercy of the law officers.

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Today I am at a meeting planning next year’s LGBT political agenda, how we are going to move forward in the coming years. Most of the time I am the only trans person at these meeting and I take the task to make sure that trans issues are heard. I don’t want to be under the GAY umbrella but under the LGBT umbrella where we our voices are all equal and not dominated by one large “gay” organization.

So it should be interesting to see what comes out of this meeting.

Taking It Out On The Kids

They are only doing the right thing, but a group of “adults” see it otherwise and cut funding to the Boy’s and Girl’s Clubs

Big Brothers Big Sisters loses donations following LGBTQ grant
Charleston Gazette-Mail
By Maria Young
October 19, 2017

Shortly after accepting a grant to help LGTBQ children and teenagers, Big Brothers Big Sisters of South Central West Virginia lost thousands of dollars in promised donations and might have to shut down its Raleigh County program, the organization’s executive director said Thursday.

Sara McDowell said the group lost $60,000 to $80,000 in local grants earmarked primarily for its Beckley-Raleigh County office after plans were announced in September for LGTBQ awareness training for staff members.

“If we do not raise the funds we need quickly, we will have to suspend our program in the Beckley area,” McDowell said. “This has also put a significant fiscal strain on us here in Charleston, because we are having to cover those costs.”

The awareness training grant was provided through the national Big Brothers Big Sisters of America organization, which contacted McDowell’s office in August to see if the organization would be interested.

These bigots are hiding behind religion to deny the children of Beckley-Raleigh County a place to go after school. Big Brothers Big Sisters of America only want to be more inclusive and provide a safe space.

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The class yesterday went great, and I finished the PowerPoint about ten minutes before the end of the class. They didn't ask any questions but they took a lot of notes, the students now a days are always typing away on something. I always wonder if they are taking notes or are texting comments to one another, when I was a grad student I saw that text became the new way to pass notes in class.

I parked in the visitor's by the Engineering building and the guard was very helpful, he asked if I knew my way to the classroom and when I said no, he escorted me through the maze to the room.