In The News

More and more states are passing laws banning conversion therapy, here in Connecticut we passed the law in 2017 with a vote of 36 Yea, 0 Nay in the Senate and in the House the vote was 141 Yea, Nay 8 so there was strong bipartisan support for the bill.

Republicans reject conversion therapy ban in Minnesota
Pink News
By Patrick Kelleher
10th May 2019

An amendment in Minnesota that would have banned conversion therapy for minors has been shot down by Republican senators.

The amendment—which was put forward by openly gay Senator Scott Dibble—was ultimately voted against by every Republican in the house, and failed by a 34-30 majority, according to CityPages.com.

The amendment’s rejection came as a blow to Dibble as he had previously had two Republicans approach him to offer their support. One of those Republcians, Scott Jensen, provided his own version of the amendment as he was worried that Dibble’s version was too far-reaching.

He was told by Jensen and fellow Republican Eric Pratt that, if they took it on, they could get between four and 10 Republicans to support the measure.

Then they Republicans played hardball with their members...

However, Republican Majority Leader Paul Gazelka called a recess and summoned the Senate’s Republicans to a meeting.

Here in Connecticut the Republicans can be surprising in that they vote for LGBTQ+ legislation but the Trump Republicans here are becoming more vocal and want to follow the national party.

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On this Mother’s Day families are being attacked by the Trump administration.

“We Are Scared”: Gay Dads Fight to Keep Son From Being Deported by Trump
"Every night when we go to sleep, we think about what could happen."
NewNowNext
By Nico Lang
May 10, 2019

[…]
His husband’s indomitable spirit would repeatedly be put to the test throughout the course of their relationship. The couple was married in 2010, three years before the repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). Because the United States didn’t recognize their relationship at the time, the two were forced to start a life together in Canada. A year after the Supreme Court ruled marriage equality legal across the U.S., the two gave birth to twins, Ethan and Aidan, conceived through a surrogate, with the expectation they would be granted citizenship.

The day they went to the American consulate to apply for a U.S. passport for their sons, Elad remembers it was a “cold day in Toronto.” He adds, “We had to wait with a baby stroller for twins outside before they let us into the building.”
[…]
Because Ethan isn’t Andrew’s biological son, he was denied citizenship. The couple would later receive two envelopes in the mail: a smaller one containing Aiden’s passport, and a much larger one containing an explanation the U.S. government’s birthright policy.

Wrong!

The Trump administration hates anything LGBTQ+

Even after a California district court ruled in February that the policy unfairly discriminates against same-sex families, the couple’s fight isn’t over. At 6pm ET on the last possible day to file an appeal, the State Department announced plans to seek a reversal of the ruling. The case will soon be headed for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, although it could be another year before the bench is prepared to hear oral arguments.

Elad claims they were “shocked and disappointed” to learn the Trump administration is appealing the historic court victory. As a condition of that ruling, U.S. District Judge John F. Walter ordered the State Department to issue Ethan a passport, and until this week, he was living peacefully with his family in Los Angeles.
[…]
Spencer Tilger, the public affairs manager for Immigration Equality, claims Judge John F. Walter said as much in his February ruling. He claimed the State Department’s interpretation of the Immigration and Nationality Act is “strained.”

“Their policy is based on the laws that Congress has created, but they’re misinterpreting the law,” Tilger tells NewNowNext. “We can’t say exactly why they’re so set on this interpretation, but it’s clear that the impact of this law is discriminatory toward LGBTQ families. When a same-sex couple goes to a consulate [to register their child for U.S. citizenship], they’re always going to be asked about how they conceived the child. A married different-sex couple is never going to be asked that question.”

Anything to deny us of our Human Rights.

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Then down in Texas a group of women stood up to the Republicans bigots.

All-female Texas LGBT caucus defeats ‘Save Chick-fil-A’ bill
Pink News
By Sofia Lotto Persio
10th May 2019

The Texas LGBT+ caucus successfully defeated a bill characterised as an attack on LGBT+ rights.

The five out lawmakers leading the recently-formed Texas House LGBT+ Caucus challenged Republican Matt Krause’s House Bill 3172 during a floor reading on Thursday (May 9).

State representative Julie Johnson moved a point of order against the bill, which was rejected, the Texas Tribune reported.

The second point of order raised was however accepted, killing the bill which intended to protect “religious beliefs and moral convictions, including beliefs and convictions regarding marriage.”
Critics of the bill feared that, if passed, the legislation would be used to discriminate against LGBT+ people in the name of “sincerely held” religious beliefs.

When we defeat one attack on us there is another attack waiting in the wings… it has become a never ending battle.

Saturday 9: THE PERFECT FAN

Sam's Saturday 9: THE PERFECT FAN (1999)

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



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

1) In this song, a son thanks his mother for helping him grow up strong and confident. Who is the last person you thanked? What did they do for you?
The waitress at a little Italian restaurant Thursday

2) Who was the last person to thank you for something?
 A person who I helped out last week.

3) This is from the Backstreet Boys' album Millennium, recorded and released in 1999. Do you remember where you were and what you were doing when 1999 turned into 2000?
I remember exactly what I was doing at the start of the new millennium… four of us sat around at work in the computer room watching for the Y2K millennium bug. Great way to spend the start of the millennium… not
And I didn’t even get paid since I was salaried while my three technicians were all getting paid double time.

4) This song was written by Backstreet Boy Brian Littrell. Brian voiced himself on an episode of PBS' Arthur. Arthur has been described as an "animated anthropomorphic aardvark" -- which can be difficult to say. Do you easily get tongue tied?
Yes, especially when I am on live TV.

5) The French word for "mother" is "mère." What other French words do you know?
Qui and bonjour mademoiselle

6) Mother's Day is a big holiday for card shops. So are birthdays, weddings, and St. Patrick's Day. Hallmark sells greetings for everything from "Congratulations on Your New Job" to "Happy Retirement." Who received the most recent card you bought?
Um… I didn’t send out Christmas cards last year so it would have been the year before, 2017.

7) Have you put away your winter clothes yet?
Nah, they just get buried under the summer clothes

8) Mother Winters used to scold Sam for leaving her dirty dishes in the sink. Sam admits it: as a grown up, she's still a bit of a slob. Do lean toward "neat" or "messy?"
Messy

9) To celebrate Mother's Day, Sam is giving away her mother's favorite: Hershey Bars. Would you prefer classic milk chocolate, dark chocolate or milk chocolate with almonds?
Since I am a diabetic I really shouldn’t have chocolate but I have been known to sneak some chocolate now and then. So when I sneak some chocolate I prefer milk chocolate with almonds. Dark chocolate have way too much caffeine in it, it sets off my arrhythmia.

A Big Surprise Yesterday

As many of you know I am tracking a number of LGBTQ+ bills through the Connecticut legislature current session and I signed up get emails from the General Assembly for them. Well I haven’t heard any updates in a while.

I was out last night with a group of social workers so I was surprised when I got home that I had gotten emails from friends saying that one of the bills that I am tracking passed has passed the Senate (I got the notice from the tracker email at 3:00 AM).

I didn’t know this was happening tonight but SB 58 got called in the senate and they put it on the consent calendar. Sampson didn’t even speak in opposition! So as soon as they vote on the consent calendar it will be unanimous! I’ll keep you posted if anything changes.

And a second email said,

Passed unanimously on consent! YAY!! Now we go to the House.

These emails are from a friend who is a lobbyist and she didn't even know, that is how sudden this was, right out of the blue.

That was amazing, do you know how often the Democrats and Republicans pass anything with bipartisan support and to pass it unanimously… almost never happens.

Just when you think you have the Republicans figured out they do something like this!

So here is the vote tally and you can read about the bill here.

So two Senators didn't vote or were absent. Many times they don't vote because they are opposed to a bill and don't want to go on record opposing the the bill or they were not there to vote.

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Update: 5/11/19 6:0 AM

So what is Trans/Gay Panic defense?

I have seen a lot of comments on Facebook about this bill and it highlighted a lack of understanding about the bill (Also there seems to be a lack of understanding about the legislative process, the passage in the Senate doesn’t mean that it is now law, the bill has to be passed in the House next then on to the governor to sign it into law.) so here is an article from the LGBT Bar Association explaining what trans/gay panic protects.

What is the gay and trans “panic” defense?
The gay and trans “panic” defense is a legal strategy which asks a jury to find that a victim’s sexual orientation or gender identity is to blame for the defendant’s violent reaction, including murder. It is not a free standing defense to criminal liability, but rather a legal tactic which is used to bolster other defenses. When the defense is employed, the perpetrator claims that their victim’s sexual orientation or gender identity not only explains – but excuses – their loss of self-control and subsequent assault. By fully or partially acquitting the perpetrators of crimes against LGBTQ+ victims, these defenses imply that LGBTQ+ lives are worth less than others.

One of the most recognized cases that employed the gay “panic” defense was that of Matthew Shepard. In 1998, Matthew Shepard, a 21 year old college student, was beaten to death by two men. The men attempted to use the gay “panic” defense to excuse their actions. Despite widespread public protest, the defense is still being used today.

How is the defense used in court?
Traditionally, the gay/trans “panic” defense has been used in three ways to mitigate a case of murder to manslaughter or justified homicide.

• Defense of insanity or diminished capacity: The defendant alleges that a sexual proposition by the victim – due to their sexual orientation or gender identity – triggered a nervous breakdown in the defendant, causing a gay or transgender “panic.” This defense is based on an outdated psychological term, “gay panic” disorder, which was debunked by the American Psychiatric Association and removed from the DSM in 1952. Sadly, while the medical field has evolved with our increasingly just society, the legal field has yet to catch up.
• Defense of provocation: The defense of provocation allows a defendant to argue that the victim’s proposition, sometimes termed a “non-violent sexual advance,” was sufficiently “provocative” to induce the defendant to kill the victim. Defendants claiming a “provocative” advance stigmatize behavior which, on its own, is not illegal or harmful, but is only considered “provocative” when it comes from an LGBTQ+ individual.
• Defense of self-defense: Defendants claim they believed that the victim, because of their sexual orientation or gender identity/expression, was about to cause the defendant serious bodily harm. This defense is offensive and harmful because it argues that a person’s gender or sexual identity makes them more of a threat to safety. In addition, gay or trans “panic” is often employed to justify violence when the victim’s behavior falls short of the serious bodily harm standard, or the defendant used a greater amount of force than reasonably necessary to avoid danger, such as using weapons when their attacker was unarmed.

South Of The Border

We won another court case, this time in Mexico.

Mexico's top court says new birth certificate must be issued after sex change
Reuters
By Anthony Esposito
May 8, 2019

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexico’s Supreme Court asked the state of Jalisco on Wednesday to grant a new birth certificate to a resident there to reflect the fact the person changed their sex and name, another step toward equal rights in the socially conservative country.

“As the Supreme Court has argued in other cases, everyone has the right to define their own sexual and gender identity and it is the state’s responsibility to guarantee this decision, which is reflected in the different documents, mainly in the birth certificate,” the court said in a statement.

The court said the person, who was not identified, could go to the civil registry directly to request the new birth certificate, which is required for an array of legal and bureaucratic procedures in Mexico.

Pink News reported that,

The court issued a similar ruling in October 2018, allowing a Veracruz resident to change their gender marker without going before a judge, as had been customary until then.

At least Mexico is heading in the right direction unlike the U.S.

I Remember…

When Trump was elected people were calling the CT Transadvocacy Coalition phone just wanting to talk, they were worried and scared about what is going to happen to us. Well their fears it turned out was well founded, but there are some who were happy that Trump won.

Gay men are increasingly voting for anti-LGBTQ right-wingers, says gay cultural historian
"Give [gay men] the chance and they will vote for xenophobia, for racism, and for misogyny," he says.
NewNowNext
By Daniel Villarreal
February 2, 2019

In the 2018 U.S. midterm elections, 82% of LGBTQ voters voted for Democrats, America’s more pro-LGBTQ political party. But in many other Western countries “right-wing and virulently homophobic parties enjoy considerable support among gay voters,” says Samuel Huneke, a gay historian at Stanford University who studies modern European culture.

Huneke looked at voting data from 14 elections in five Western countries — the US, UK, France, Germany and Brazil — and then published a recent article on the troubling phenomenon. It it, Huneke observed:

LGBT voters in other [non-U.S.] countries were less likely to support the conservative (or in some cases far-right) party by an average of only seven percent. And when you look only at gay men, the results are even more striking. In other countries, gay men were, on average, more likely than the general electorate to support the conservative or far-right party.

[…]
“Gay politics in other countries prove that LGBT people — especially gay men — are not inherently progressive voters. Give them the chance and they will vote for xenophobia, for racism, and for misogyny. Democrats (and progressive parties in other countries, for that matter) cannot and must not take the gay vote for granted,” Huneke concludes.

Why do they vote conservative?

What is it that gets them to vote against their human rights?

An article in Quillette calls gays who vote Republican “Fox News Faggot” and it is not just gays but also there are trans people who vote Republican. Some of them saw the light but others are still stanch Republicans.

Of course I have theories on what they vote against their freedom.

First I think many of them are old school Republican in the new age of the party of bigots. They ignore the white supremacists who have taken over the party. They ignore all the anti-LGBTQ+, anti-women, anti-Muslim, and anti-immigrants laws being introduced by the Republicans and instead dream of the by-gone days of smaller government and lower taxes.

Second I think it is in part "white male privilege," conservatives are more male orientated. If you look at Republicans in Congress they are mainly white and male.

Then I think there are those LGBTQ+ Republicans who put money before all else… they follow the doctrine of “I got mine screw everyone else.”

Hello 911

Do you dread call for help because you worry about how they will or if treat you.

New study suggests that nearly 60% of transgender people in the U.S. have reported mistreatment by police in the last year
New York Daily News
By Muri Assunção
May 7, 2019

Police treatment of the transgender population in the U.S. is in dire need of reform, according to new report.

Findings from a survey released by the National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE) based on the U.S. Transgender Surveyrevealed some sobering statistics that are, unfortunately, an all-too-common reality for over half of trans individuals living in this country: 58% of transgender individuals have experienced harassment, abuse or other mistreatment by law enforcement agents last year.

“On the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots, transgender people of color remain targets of harassment, abuse, and violence. If we ever hope to end this crisis, police departments must evolve to meet the needs of the communities they have sworn to serve. The solutions we offer can lead these communities and our nation’s law enforcement to a more equitable future, but we must get there together,” NCTE’s executive director Mara Keisling said in a press release.

The NCTE report…
Overall, police departments across the U.S. are failing to protect and serve transgender people. Of the largest 25 police departments:

• Only nine of the 25 departments include gender identity and/or expression language in their non-discrimination policy, which is the best way to clarify that transgender people are protected.
• Only one department fully addressed how gender-specific policies applied to people with non-binary (not exclusively male or female) gender identities and/or gender markers.
• Most department policies (15 out of 25), including those that specifically address transgender interactions, lack any policies regarding correct use of names and pronouns.
• Six departments required that gender be documented based on identification documents, 18 departments did not provide clear instructions on documenting a person's gender, and one provided guidance regarding gender-neutral markers.
• A majority of departments (16 of 25) fail to provide search procedures for transgender individuals and/or require members to perform searches based on sex.
• Out of the sixteen departments with holding facilities, 10 failed to provide specific guidance on housing placement for transgender individuals (such as being placed with other women, men, or separately).
• Only two department’s policy explicitly allows for transgender people to retain all appearance-related items (e.g. prosthetics, bras, clothes, undergarments, wigs, chest binders, or cosmetic items).
• No department explicitly requires multiple hours of regular training on transgender policies for all members across rank.
• Only two departments clearly prohibit officers from restricting transgender individuals’ access to restrooms in public places or department facilities.
• Twenty-three departments do not have policies prohibiting officer misconduct towards members of the public.
• No department explicitly prohibits the use of condoms as evidence in prostitution-related offenses.

Here in Connecticut I had to call 911 and they officers was very friendly and I had no problem him also I have been in a couple of accidents and the responding officers were accepting. One of the accidents was before I transitioned and was presenting as Diana, the Maine state police officer asked what name I would like to be address as and he referred to me as Diana but the paperwork reflected my legal name.

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In Chicago the newspaper had this to say about the report.

Chicago Police Department failing transgender community: report
Chicago Sun Times
By Fran Spielman
May 7, 2019

Less than two weeks before Chicago inaugurates its first openly gay mayor, the Chicago Police Department was cited Tuesday as one of 25 big-city police departments that fails to adequately protect the rights of transgender people.

This despite a 2015 general order setting guidelines for how officers are to treat transgender arrestees.

The report by the National Center for Transgender Equality was released ahead of the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots in New York City’s Greenwich Village. It examined 25 of the nation’s largest police departments and found all fell short at taking “proactive measures to prevent the mistreatment and misidentification of transgender people during arrests, witness interviews, search and seizure and housing of transgender people.”
[…]
The Chicago Police Department responded to the report by reiterating its commitment to treat “every resident of Chicago with respect and dignity.”

“Chicago’s strength is in its diversity, and in order to continue to improve community relations through reform, transparency and accountability, we are reviewing policies and procedures to best provide quality services to diverse communities,” the statement said.

“To better prepare our officers for serving LGBTQ+ communities, we are revising policies and protocols for arrests, pat downs, searches, transportation and detention, as is required by the federal consent decree.”

The statement noted that CPD worked with the Center on Halsted to develop an “online training module on the transgender community, which was completed by all CPD members” last year.
[…]
For example, officers were instructed to “use pronouns as requested by the individual: she, her, hers for an individual who self-identifies as a female and he, him, his for someone who self-identifies as a male.”

“If members are uncertain by which gender the individual should be addressed, members will respectfully ask the individual for clarification”[and], when requested, address that person “by a name based on their gender identity, rather than that which is on their government ID,” the general order states.

The order also prohibits Chicago Police officers from: disclosing an individual’s gender identity; using derogatory language; stopping, detaining, frisking or searching any person, “in whole or in part for the purpose of determining that person’s gender or in order to call attention to the person’s gender expression”; or using gender identification as “reasonable suspicion or prima facia evidence that the individual “is or has engaged in a crime, including prostitution.”

There is an obscure law here in Connecticut they prevents the police from disclosing what a person is wearing at the time of a police stop. The law stems from what a school official was crossdressed and fired for a police stop where they reported what he was wearing.

A Short Post This Morning

I am attending an eight o'clock meeting at a university to help them with a new trans clinic.

A well know university is planning to start up a full service clinic for trans people and they are holding community meetings to find out the needs of the community, I think that one of the topics that need to be address is that the clinic needs to included clients from cradle to grave. Children are coming out at a younger age and also senior citizens are coming out at an older age and they need to accommodate all trans people. Each age group has their own needs for medical, psychiatric, and legal help.

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While we are on healthcare for us…

What does it mean to misgender a transgender person?
Charlotte Observer
By Anna Douglas
May 7, 2019

For much of his life, Liam Johns has dreaded the doctor’s office.

Liam, 30, isn’t scared of needles. And he isn’t afraid of blood.

The problem starts in the lobby of a doctor’s office, when Liam is asked to sign in.

What happens next — write your name, age, health history and current prescriptions — may seem routine for most people. But for a transgender person, these questions can be uncomfortable.

Depending on the answers — like, whether they’ve had sex-reassignment surgery, or are taking prescription hormones to aid their transition — filling out the form in a doctor’s office is like coming out, all over again.

Beyond the waiting room, transgender patients commonly face two problems: doctors with little to no formal education on trans health needs, and health care workers who misgender them by using the wrong name or pronoun, often without even realizing their mistake.
[…]
But one critical aspect of Liam’s experience was outside of his and Dickerson’s control: The hospital system’s electronic medical records software had no option for listing any sex other than his sex assigned at birth.

This kind of system, according to trans advocates, is one of the main reasons transgender people are often misidentified in their own medical records and misgendered during doctor or hospital visits.

The doctor’s front office also needs to be trained, they are the frontline and are often overlooked.

One Bad Apple

We have been getting a bum rap from Dr. McHugh since the nineteen-seventies and at 88 he is still attacking us.

Standing Against Psychiatry’s Crazes
In 1979 Dr. Paul McHugh closed the sex-change clinic at Johns Hopkins. In the ’80s he testified against phony ‘recovered memories.’ He hasn’t given up the fight.
The Wall Street Journal
By Abigail Shrier
May 3, 2019

You might have heard this joke: A man in a car gets a call from his wife. "Honey, be careful," she says. "A car is going the wrong way on the highway." He replies: "It’s not just one car. It’s hundreds of them!"

If it were a psychiatrist joke, Paul McHugh, 87, could be that driver. A professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and a tenacious skeptic of the crazes that periodically overtake his specialty, Dr. McHugh has often served as psychiatry’s most outspoken critic. Either he’s crazy, or all the other psychiatrists are.

The best-known, and most controversial, decision of his professional life is newly relevant—and recently reversed. In 1979, as psychiatrist in chief at Johns Hopkins Hospital, he shut down the Gender Identity Clinic, which performed sex-change operations. In his view, the hospital had "wasted scientific and technical resources and damaged our professional credibility by collaborating with madness rather than trying to study, cure, and ultimately prevent it," as he wrote in 2004. In 2017 the clinic was reopened as the Center for Transgender Health, performing what it now calls "gender-affirming surgeries." Its medical-office coordinator, Mellissa Noyes, told me "the demand is massive."

Like a bad penny he won’t go away and I think that we will still be hounded by him even when he is pushing up daisies.

He even thinks that soldiers coming back from war are faking PTSD…

Dr. McHugh argues that the treatment of returning soldiers for the liberally applied PTSD diagnosis is another example of iatrogenesis [a Greek word meaning "brought on by the healer"]. Such diagnoses are far rarer among Israel Defense Forces veterans, who experience plenty of trauma. Israelis "know that you can get a terrible psychological reaction out of a traumatic battle. And they do take the soldiers out, and they tell them the following: ‘This is perfectly normal; you need to be out of battle for a while. Don’t think that this is a disease that’s going to hurt you, this is like grief. You’re going to get over it, it’s normal. And within a few weeks, after a little rest, we’re going to put you back with your comrades and you’re going to go back to work.’ And they all do."

It is a case of 60,000 psychiatrist are wrong and he is right… talk about being egotistic.

In fact, both parties seem to be sleeping fine—separately. Most current Johns Hopkins medical students, Dr. McHugh says, won’t talk to him. "They think that my views must be motivated by hatred," he says, sounding baffled.

I think his views are shaped by his religion, he is a practicing Catholic and has strong conservative views and I don’t think that it is based on hate but I think his religion is biasing his views on LGBTQ+ people. Earlier in the year he has a book out that is a review of published research on gender dysphoria.

Dr. McHugh is going to be with us for a very, very long time as long as haters are out there against us.

Note: this article is behind a paywall. But it seems like it has been cross posted here.

Trans-Face

There is no need to have cisgender actors/actresses play trans actors, there are so many talented trans actors/actresses out there many of them have won awards.

How Trans Actors Are Rewriting the Rules of TV Casting
The New York Times
By Nico Lang
May 3, 2019

Although Jen Richards is transgender, the character she played in the NBC series “Blindspot” was not — at least not on the page.

Richards was approached last year by the showrunner Martin Gero to play, she said, an “aggressive, duplicitous C.I.A. agent,” in a two-episode arc that aired in January. “He saw something in me and liked me,” she recalled, adding that she wasn’t asked to audition for the part.

She had recently picked up Gotham and Peabody Awards for “Her Story,” a web series she starred in and helped write about a pair of trans best friends juggling their personal and professional lives. The six-episode drama was hailed as a landmark moment for L.G.B.T.Q. representation — a rare chance to see trans lives depicted honestly and authentically.

But when Gero reached out to Richards for the role of Sabrina Larren, it was because he had seen her guest star as a therapist in an episode of “Nashville” and admired the “ease, strength and empathy in her performance,” he wrote in an email.

Did you get that? She is playing the part of a cisgender woman and she won awards for her acting! She was hired not because she’s trans but for her acting skills.

Trans actors say such casting opportunities should be more routine. That is seldom the case. While television has made great strides in L.G.B.T.Q. inclusion with shows such as “Orange Is the New Black” and “Pose,” when trans actors are called in to read for a project, they still find they are only considered for parts specifically written for transgender people.
[…]
But recently, Cordelia was invited to audition for a walk-on role in “The Red Line,” a CBS show that premiered this month. A law clerk in the district attorney’s office, the character only has one line.

What made the tiny part unique is that the casting call permitted anyone — regardless of gender or race — to audition.

There are so many talented trans people out there…

13 Trans Actors to Follow Instead of Scarlett Johansson
"Trans people live our lives everyday, and our lives are not costumes. They are real and worthy of celebration."
Them
By Eva Reign
July 6, 2018

From Boys Don’t Cry to Transamerica, Dallas Buyer’s Club to The Danish Girl, Hollywood loves a trans narrative. After all, they’ve historically nabbed Oscar nominations, critical acclaim, and cultural purchase for forcing society to see gender and the struggles of a marginalized community in new light. Yet Hollywood’s love of trans stories highlights one blaring problem: its equal love of cisgender actors, whom the industry almost always casts to play transgender roles.

Earlier this week, it was announced that Scarlett Johansson would star as Dante “Tex” Gill in the upcoming film Rub & Tug. The film is based on the real-life story of Gill, a trans-masculine person; given Johansson is a cisgender woman, many criticized the choice as tone-deaf, given how much trans acting talent exists in Hollywood today. Trans actors are more than capable of portraying their own community. And beyond moral or ethical arguments against it, Johansson’s casting highlights the inherent injustice of casting a cis actor for a trans role: It denies trans actors access to opportunities in an industry where they already face systemic discrimination. Pursuing a trans storyline with cis actors diminishes the multi-faceted, impossibly complex narratives of trans folk, and says we’re incapable of telling our own stories.

Some of the actresses/actors the article mentions are,

• Laverne Cox
• Elliot Fletcher
• Trace Lysette
• Brian Michael Smith
• Tom Phelan
• Jamie Clayton

And I would also add,

• Michelle Hendley
• Rachel Crowl
• Rebecca Root

In addition I would also like to add two producers; the two Wachowski sisters.

It was wrong when Yul Brynner played The King and I, and Sidney Toler played Charlie Chan, and when Burt Lancaster and Charles Bronson played Native Americans, it is also wrong for cisgender actors play trans parts.

Those who say that they are hiring cisgender actors because of their box office draw ae using circular logic; trans actors are not being hired because they don’t have name recognition but they can’t get “name recognition” because they are not being hired.

Let’s end trans face now and start employing trans actresses/actors for not only trans parts but also cisgender parts.

When It Becomes Big Business

PRIDE!

It is a celebration of life.

It is a celebration of our rights.

It is a celebration of overcoming oppression.

It is a celebration of corporation sponsors… wait what?

I saw an “I Love NY” ad on Facebook that caught my attention on just how commercial Pride has become.

WorldPride 2019
We're not just proud in the city, come see all of New York State!
New York is the most desired travel location in the world for the LGBT community and no other place offers a warmer welcome. Outdoor adventure, world-class culture, beautiful beaches, unbeatable shopping, magnificent mountains, lazy lakes, the best sites, and the tastiest food all await you in New York State.

For the first time, WorldPride is coming to the United States, and with the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Uprising, it's no surprise that New York is hosting. That means bigger Pride celebrations, more special LGBT events, and more fun than ever before!

This year, Pride is bigger, and your vacation should be bigger, too. Find what you love in New York State today.

50 years ago they wanted to lock us up!

50 years later they want to make a buck off of us.

The Washington Blade said that the “Official New York Pride” will use wrist bands to control who are marching in the parade.

Last year, for example, HOP [Heritage of Pride] announced it would not allow anyone to join the march unless they preregistered and obtained a wrist band to gain entrance to the march route, which was sealed off with metal barricades on both sides of the streets.

Corporate sponsors are becoming more visible and there are some who don’t like that.

There’s a Corporation-Free Queer Liberation March Happening in NYC
Here’s how a group of activists made it happen.
Out
By Mathew Rodriguez
May 1, 2019

New York will host this year’s World Pride event to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots. But those who attend the annual New York City LGBT Pride March know that the often 9-hour long affair is now stuffed to the gills with corporate floats and may not always feel welcoming to some due to the over-policing of the event.

There’s now an alternative for those who want to celebrate pride while also feeling the original spirit of the event: a political protest called the Queer Liberation March. The Reclaim Pride Coalition is a group of New York City activists bucking the usual antics of the parade and throwing a smaller event that takes the parade’s original route — starting in the West Village’ Sheridan Square, heading uptown, and ending in Central Park — attempting to inhabit the march’s original spirit. Out spoke to Reclaim Pride Coalition member and ACT UP alum Ann Northrop about the logistics of planning another parade on the same day as New York City pride, why it’s time for an alternative to the actual parade and how you can get involved.
[…]
Since last fall we have been working on organizing a Queer Liberation March, just people in the streets, no uniform cops in our parade, no corporate floats and universal access for everybody to join. We’re going to model it after the first marchets [sic], starting in Sheridan Square and going up Sixth Avenue into Central Park for a rally on the Great Lawn. 

And down in Washington DC the Washington Blade article goes on to say…

Members of No Justice No Pride have issued a series of demands calling, among other things, for Capital Pride Alliance to ban most corporations from the parade and for banning D.C. police from marching in the parade or having a visible presence along the parade route.

Last year NewNowNext asked the question,

Opinion: Why We Need to Take Back Pride From Corporate America and the NYPD
"Pride has become less a march and more a parade."
By Jay W. Walker
June 7, 2018

As a proud New Yorker, I’ve called this city home for more than 30 years. In my early years attending New York City Pride, joy, anger, activism, and community enveloped the festivities. In the late 1980s and early ‘90s, when acts of homophobic violence and discrimination against LGBT people were common nationwide, the Pride March route was porous: People on the sidelines could suddenly decide to march with ACT UP, the gay writers, or a church. Revelers could easily navigate the West Village, the neighborhood that flanked the festival.

In the mid-to-late ‘90s, however, things began to change. The New York City Police Department locked the event route down, rendering marchers completely separate from viewers. Parts of the West Village were barricaded into impassable streets.

Then the 9/11 terror attacks changed the course of Pride yet again: Any remaining stops on the NYPD’s efforts to control all public gatherings were off. The police presence along the route and throughout the West Village grew, and for many young queers of color, already subject to racially biased policing, Pride became an event fraught with fear, anxiety, and discomfort. Many longtime activists, mindful that the Pride March stemmed from the Stonewall Riots against the NYPD, balked at what they viewed as a police takeover of Pride.

At the same time, Heritage of Pride (HOP), the organization responsible for producing Pride events, became more reliant on corporate support. With corporate contingents numbering in the thousands, the march also lasted longer each year. Pride became less a march and more a parade. Oddly enough, at a time when acceptance of LGBT people in metropolitan areas like New York was at an all-time high, the policing of Pride events grew, too.

Local Pride events are a mixture of corporate and municipal sponsors; there are Pride events scheduled all around Connecticut this year including a new event in Middletown and one that was held last Saturday in Bethel. In the coming months there will be other Pride events in Norwalk, New Haven, New London, and Hartford and many of them are being held over several days at various bars in their respective cities.

I recognized that part of the problem is tight municipal budgets, municipal services were provided by the city but now cities want to be reimbursed for police and municipal workers who clean up afterwards and that costs big bucks. That extra expense has to be covered somehow and corporations stepped in with pockets filled with cash.

I remember when the event was held in Bushnell Park by the music shell and they used to have play areas for children now on Pratt Street there are beer vendors and bars along the street and for me it seems less family centered.

The questions now are should we screen companies that want to be sponsors? Do we want adult beverage companies as sponsors? Do we want bars and restaurants as sponsors? In Massachusetts what about marijuana sponsors? What about banks that redline communities?

What about having Pride at libraries for the children? What about having a function at the Science Center? Or the Carousel?

It is time to open an intercourse on where and how we want our Pride celebrated.

Multiple answers are allowed on the poll question.

bike tracks

A Tale Of Two Frats

You can tell a lot about an organization by who they invite into their organizations.

Gay and Greek: LGBTQ+ students make homes in fraternities and sororities
The Daily Tar Heels
By Suzanne Blake
February 18, 2019

Sarah always pictured herself in Greek life. But this year, after rushing, the UNC sophomore was still keeping one element of her identity from her Panhellenic sorority Pi Beta Phi: she’s bisexual.

Sarah, who asked to be identified by a different name to avoid being outed to her parents, did not often see the LGBTQ+ community associated with college Greek life. During rush, she knew Pi Beta Phi had an openly out member.

In 2016, the sorority changed their national bylaws to accept transgender women in an effort of inclusivity.
[…]
Sarah joins a larger group of LGBTQ+ people who have broken stereotypes and made homes in social fraternities and sororities on college campuses.

And then there is…

In a first, a transgender person is campus president of this Jewish sorority
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
By Josefin Dolsten
January 8, 2019

(JTA) — In December, the Jewish sorority at the University of Cincinnati elected a new president. The new leader was a founding member of the campus group who was highly involved in Jewish life at the university.

But the 21-year-old’s election was surprising in at least one way: For the first time, Sigma Alpha Epsilon Pi, or SAEPi, would be led by someone not identifying as a woman.

About a year earlier, Elliot Draznin came out to the sorority sisters as nonbinary, identifying neither as a man or woman. Draznin asked to be referred to using “they” as a singular pronoun instead of “she.”

But not everyone is signing kumbaya.

Sorority Bans Transgender Women in “Diversity Statement”
Zeta Phi Beta doesn't want trans women joining, but says it "values all people."
NewNowNext
By Jeff Taylor
April 26, 2019

Zeta Phi Beta, a sorority with more than 100,000 members and over 800 chapters internationally, has banned transgender women as part of its “diversity statement.”

An unnamed source sent the statement to The Washington Blade, which was accepted by the International Executive Board on January 12. It reportedly states “an individual must be a cisgender woman” to be a member. It also says the sorority “values all people, regardless of race, age, gender, gender expression, ability, disability, creed, religion, or walk of life.”

The publication says the sorority did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

The sorority was founded in 1920, at Howard University, to “directly affect positive change, chart a course of action for the 1920s and beyond, raise consciousness of their people, encourage the highest standards of scholastic achievement, and foster a greater sense of unity among its members.”

Well I guess the “directly affect positive change” didn’t take hold, instead bias against us took hold.

Finally Some Good News

Lately it has been very hard to find some good news on the Trans Front but down in Texas by a federal judge.

10 transgender women seeking asylum just won their immigration cases after months of violence and discrimination
CBS News
By Kate Smith
May 2, 2019

Ten transgender women who traveled with the caravan that President Trump targeted during the midterm elections have won their asylum cases and been released from a detention center in Texas.

For Estrellita, the decision to flee her home country of Honduras to seek asylum in the United States wasn't an easy one. Even though she faced discrimination for being transgender, she considered staying so she could help others like her.

"I wanted to change things but that made me more of a target," Estellita told CBS News via email. "I was assaulted and threatened by those who didn't agree with me and hated trans people. I love my country and wouldn't have left but for the persecution I suffered. But I thought the U.S. would be pretty and the people would be nice and that has turned out to be true."

The 10 were part of a roughly 80-member group of LGBTQ migrants from Central America that splintered off from a much larger caravan of thousands that came up through Central America in the fall. The larger group was a frequent target of Mr. Trump in the lead up to the 2018 midterm elections. Mr. Trump often referred to the group as an "invasion," despite the group being hundreds of miles away.

Given today’s political climate out of Washington this is really good news considering however other trans asylum seekers have been refused asylum or had other legal troubles.

Recently freed Honduran transgender woman detained again by Ice

Nicole García Aguilar fled Honduras after being subjected to sexual assault and attempted murder linked to her gender identity
The Guardian
By Nina Lakhani
26 Apr 2019

A Honduran transgender asylum seeker who was released last week after a year incarcerated in immigration centres has been re-detained by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice).

The move was condemned by her legal team as punitive and damaging to the young woman’s physical and mental health.
[…]
Garcia legally claimed asylum upon arriving at the southern US border in April 2018. She was transferred to the country’s only specialist transgender unit in Cibola county, New Mexico, as her claim progressed through the immigration courts.

Garcia was granted asylum by an immigration judge in October 2018. Despite the ruling, Ice refused to release her and appealed the asylum decision claiming there were inconsistencies in Garcia’s testimonies.
[…]
Before being released, Garcia was transferred to an Ice custody in El Paso, Texas, where she had a pending criminal charge. The charge was dismissed and Garcia finally released from Ice detention on 17 April but given no release paperwork – a document that is essential in order to travel freely and avoid detention at immigration checkpoints.

But her ordeal wasn’t over yet.

On 24 April, Garcia, accompanied by advocates from the Detained Migrants Solidarity Committee, went to the Ice office in El Paso to obtain her release paperwork where she was taken into custody.

Being a minority like Ms. Garcia is pure hell… being put in a men’s prison subject to sexual assaults and then placed in solitary confinement for her own protection is insane.

Morphing

A lot of things morph from one thing to another; one thing that comes to mind is a caterpillar to a butterfly which is sometimes used as a symbol for what we go through. Okay what really wanted to talk about is how language morphs over time.

• Every culture has their own language 
• Definitions evolve
• Words can have different means to different people
• Some people are very passionate about labels

Some of the more common definitions (At least for today) are…

I use that slide in my opening PowerPoint presentation and then I define “Transgender” and how it is morphing to mean someone who identifies as another gender than that which was assigned to them at birth. My definition is…

• A broad term for people whose gender identity or expression falls outside cultural norms associated with their assigned sex not directly related to sexual orientation; transgender includes transsexuals, cross-dressers, androgynous people, genderqueer, non-binary and many other categories 
• Not everyone who is gender-nonconforming identifies as transgender

However, there are a number of trans people who probably would define the word as the magazine Psychology Today defines it…

What Is Transgender?
The term transgender refers to people whose sense of their own gender differs from what would be expected based on the sex characteristics with which they are born. A transgender person may identify as a trans woman, meaning one who has transitioned to live as a woman despite having been born with male genitalia; a trans man, or one who has transitioned to live as a man; or nonbinary, which connotes a sense that one is not strictly a man or a woman.

Beginning as early as childhood, a transgender person may have persistent feelings of gender dysphoria—a disconnect between the person's primary and secondary sex traits and designated gender and the gender with which that person identifies. While many children who experience such feelings do not go on to identify as transgender in adulthood, long-standing gender dysphoria is a common experience of adults who do identify as transgender.

I see it as a difference in exclusion and inclusion.

I think transgender is changing into the second definition because of the media, I think when we say transgender the news reporters hear “transsexual.” We use it as an umbrella term but when reporters hear the word they think we are only talking those whose gender identity is different than that was assigned at birth.

online surveys

Saturday 9: Don't Envy Me

Saturday 9: Don't Envy Me (1963)

On Saturdays I take a break from the heavy stuff and have some fun…
It has been a crazy last couple of weeks, last Saturday we our annual conference and I was there from 6:30AM until 5:00PM… it was a very long day!



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

1) What is it about you that you believe your friends and acquaintances envy?
Hmm… that’s a hard one.
Maybe my mind.

2) Do you have a friend or acquaintance that you envy?
Yeah, the ones who can just start a conversation with a stranger… I’m too introverted.

3) This song was not a hit, even though it was written and produced by the supersuccessful team of Burt Bacharach and Hal David. Tell us about a project you had great confidence in at the beginning, but didn't turn out as well as you'd hoped.
Oh there are so many of them that I can’t recall and particular one. After all, life is about trying new things and many of them don’t turn out as we hoped, everything from a new lover or to a new recipe.

4) George Hamilton is better known as an actor. He is proud of his performance in the 1960 movie Light in the Piazza. He played an Italian who romances an American girl on holiday in Florence. Did you ever find love while vacationing?
Nope.

5) George had a small part in Godfather III. How many of the Godfather movies have you seen? Have you read the book?
I only saw the first Godfather and I never read the book and probably wouldn’t unless it was written about space.

6) He's gotten a lot of publicity over the years for his personal life, including his 1966 romance with First Daughter Lynda Bird Johnson. At the time, she was living in the White House. Tell us about a memorable experience you had "meeting the parents."
Well this is going to be a short answer… I haven’t had one.

7) George is also known for his year-round tan. Have you ever used a tanning bed? Or self tanner?
Nope… I live in the shade.

8) In 1963, when this record was released, President Kennedy made a historic trip to Ireland. Have you ever visited the land of your ancestors?
Well I have visited Waterbury and Fairfield where my parents were born.
Oh wait! You mean my grandparents. Yes I have visited Waterbury and Fairfield where my grandparents were born.

9) Random question -- The last of a batch of delicious chocolate chip cookies just fell on your kitchen floor. Would you eat it?
Well I would leave a ¼ inch layer on the floor and use the rest of the batter.
(update: hmm... I thought it said cookie dough.That's what happens when you answer the questions at 4 in the morning)





Thanks so much for joining us again at Saturday: 9. As always, feel free to come back, see who has participated and comment on their posts. In fact sometimes, if you want to read & comment on everyone's responses, you might want to check back again tomorrow. But it is not a rule. We haven’t any rules here. Join us on next Saturday for another version of Saturday: 9, "Just A Silly Meme on a Saturday!" Enjoy your weekend!

Getting The Word Out

How many times have we heard they we can’t find any therapist to treat us… well that is changing.

This morning I co-presented with a former classmate who specializes trans clients to teach a two hour workshop for social workers. We had a full classroom with over forty LCSW.

I did my half first of the workshop first and I gave them an abridged version of the presentation that I give on cultural competency. For my presentation I first deconstruct gender and  then cover what we have in common with gays and lesbians such as having guilt about letting down family & friends, being disowned by family, religious pressures, stress – from not conforming to sociality’s norms, depression, suicide, we also have to come out, face discrimination in employment, housing, public accommodations, we face bullying in school and violence together. I added these sections because so many times I hear from cis people “oh I know all about gays and lesbians so I don’t need to learn about trans people.

I cover differences such as having a paper trail (Credit report, Social Security, passport, driver license, school & employment recorders, and birth certificate). I cover Intersectionality; how trans people from different cultures, races, religion, and socioeconomic status face the intersection of gender identity and their cultures.

I have a section on self-esteem and acceptance and how we face more discrimination if we cannot integrate in to society, I use this quote from the 2015 U.S. Trans Survey,

Visual non-conformity is a risk factor in causing anti-transgender bias and its attendant social and economic burdens.

I talk about microaggressions, how low self-esteem affects a trans-people and causes suicidal idealization, drug and alcohol abuse, STDs and HIV/AIDS, and self-harm. How all the negative effects can go away with having a support network.

After I finished my part of the workshop my friend then talked about the clinical aspects of the presentation and how having a trans friendly practice starts at the front door. She covered how to make intake forms more trans friendly, a front staff that is trans friendly, and what to look for in clients who think that they maybe trans. As you might expect she got a lot more questions than I did since the attendees we clinical. She covered the DSM and SOC, the diagnostics and the process for youth, adolescents, and adults.

Many of her question was focused on children and how to tell if they are trans, and a number of questions were about comorbidity with other disorders.

Glancing over the workshop evaluation form it looks like we got high marks from the audience.

---

Update 5:45 pm

I just got back from the conference, the other workshop that I attended was,

An Overview of Research on Outcomes for Transgender Youth
This workshop will include a presentation of a number of research studies as the background for a group discussion of the decision-making challenges that professionals face when acting in the best interests of transgender youth. To date, research on outcomes for transgender youth provides only a patchwork of information to guide parents and professionals. While more research is underway, clinicians have to make decisions concerning transgender youth in our care without waiting for additional outcome studies. This intermediate workshop will give participants the opportunity to discuss specific ethical or clinical challenges that have arisen in their work with transgender youth and how the available research can inform their practice.

It was an excellent workshop I learned a lot about research on trans youth and I found out that a trans youth can only be on puberty blockers for two years. The main problem with using them longer is bone density. Also I learned that they use puberty blockers for precocious puberty who start puberty too young like at 6 or 7 years old, so when people tell you that it is experimental treatment for trans children they are wrong and that there are longitudinal studies that show there are no long term detrimental effects from the drug.

---

Update 5/4/19 8:30 am

One of the slides that my co-presenter used said about the lose libido when trans women goon hormones and that brought a flashback to some of the questions I get asked.

A couple of times I answered about side effects of taking hormones…

Well some of the lesser known side effects are you stop and ask directions, read instructions, and you learn the meaning of “Not tonight honey.”

A Target On Our Backs

With hate crimes increasing here and around the world we are facing more violent against. The green light has been given by the president of the United State to the white supremacists and other hate groups to attack minorities and religious institutions.

Transgender Woman Severely Beaten In Denver, Police Looking For Attackers
CBS News Denver
By Joel Hillan
May 2, 2019

DENVER (CBS4) — Investigators with the Denver Police Department are asking for the public’s help to identify the suspect or suspects involved in an attack outside a LoDo bar that left a transgender woman with severe injuries.

“We’re just out trying to live our lives and have fun with our peers, be with our friends, just live our lives and people just can’t seem to see us that way,” said Amber Nicole.
[…]
Amber’s face and jaw were broken in several places. Nerve damage left the right side of her face partially paralyzed; doctors don’t know if it will be permanent.

While the attack was going on…

When Amber sees others nearby in the video, she wonders why no one tried to help.

“There’s so many people who can see an incident and stop it or do something about, or make a report about it, but nobody does and I don’t understand why. It feels like it’s because I’m different.”

Trump issued an executive order to “protect free speech” but in reality it is to allow white supremacists on campuses to spread their hate speech.

Trinity College in Hartford just allowed a white supremacist group on campus.

Trinity College students protest outside president’s office over recognition of Churchill Club, a conservative student group
Hartford Courant
By Nicholas Rondinone
May 1, 2019

Amid the controversy over a conservative student organization and free speech at Hartford’s Trinity College, hundreds of students Wednesday demanded that President Joanne Berger-Sweeney revoke recognition of the Churchill Club.

The Churchill Club, a 10-member group which describes itself as "dedicated to the preservation, dissemination and extension of the Western moral and philosophical tradition,” was recognized by the college earlier this year. Last weekend, the student government association rejected funding for the group, citing student “discomfort with this club” after its members “referred to members of the community in degrading terms.”
[…]
The club is the first campus chapter of the controversial Churchill Institute, started in Hartford by Trinity Professor Gregory B. Smith, who has drawn criticism for referring to African-American, Asian-American, Latino, Muslim and Jewish culture houses on campus as “tribal enclaves.”

I wonder just how much Trump EO played into recognizing the right-wing group?

Also how much did this influence the college’s decision,

Students and faculty accuse the Churchill Club of giving a platform to white supremacists and to former Trump aide Sebastian Gorka, whose daughter is a Trinity senior and a supporter of the group.

There are targets on our backs and we have to look out for those who want to do violence against us.

Stop the Hate!

---

Today I am giving a workshop at the Connecticut chapter of the National Association of Social Workers (NASW) conference with a former classmate from UConn School of Social Work. She will be doing the clinical half and I will be doing the cultural competency half.

Trans 101: Micro and Macro Perspectives
Research has shown that the transgender community faces disproportionately higher rates of suicidality, trauma, discrimination, and violence, which necessitates greater access to competent, compassionate mental health services. This workshop will provide mental health professionals with a well-rounded introduction to working with the transgender community to better prepare practitioners to competently serve this underserved and stigmatized group. The distinctions between gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, and various transition options will be explored. Implications for individual, couples, and family work will be discussed as well as clinical issues that arise across the lifespan. The processes of social, legal, and medical transition will be presented as well as the political barriers and advances that the transgender community has experienced in recent times

Names.

Here in Connecticut it fairly easy to change your name you basically have to swear you are not doing it for any illegal purpose and then the court does a background check. You can even get a waiver of the court fee if you can’t afford it and best of all you don’t have to publish your name change, but in some state there are a lot of hoops you have to jump through.

States sued over transgender name-change laws
My Journal Courier
By Ivan Moreno Associated Press
May 2, 2019

Attorneys sued Wisconsin and Illinois on Wednesday over laws that forbid transgender individuals from changing their names if they have certain criminal convictions.

Both lawsuits argue that the states are violating free speech rights and are preventing people from expressing how they identify themselves.

“The impact on their lives is severe. This is an issue of equality and equal participation in society,” said Lark Mulligan, an attorney who filed the Illinois lawsuit. Mulligan, who is a transgender woman, noted “all the times that people are forced to use their IDs just to access basic services — applying for public benefits, applying for school, applying for a job or an apartment, anything like that.”

The lawsuits, filed in Cook County, Illinois, and Kenosha County, Wisconsin, say eight transgender women in Illinois and one transgender woman in Wisconsin encounter an array of challenges in their daily lives. The suits cited instances in which transgender individuals failed to get food stamps because their chosen name is not on their ID, or times when they were ridiculed in public places after showing identification that didn’t reflect their gender and chosen name.
[…]
Thirteen states don’t require disclosure of criminal history for name changes, according to an article in the DePaul Law Review. Twenty-eight states and Washington, D.C., require criminal background checks, but don’t automatically bar name changes. Illinois is among nine states with more restrictive laws.

The Connecticut form PC-901 instructions are…

1) An individual 18 years of age or older may use this form to petition for a change of his or her name.
2) The petition must be filed in the court for the probate district in which the petitioner resides and accompanied by a) PC-910, Affidavit RE Change of Name, b) a certified copy of the petitioner’s long-form birth certificate and c) two forms of identification, one of which must be photographic identification.
3) The court will conduct a search of the sex offender registry and of the registry of offenders convicted of crimes with a deadly weapon and may conduct a full criminal background check.
4) For more information, see Probate Court Rules of Procedure sections 47.1 and 47.4.
5) Type or print the form in ink. Use an additional sheet, or PC-180, if more space is needed.
[…]
The purpose of seeking a change of name is not to deceive, defraud or mislead any person or governmental agency, nor to avoid the legal consequences of a criminal conviction, but solely for the reason(s) stated above.

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Here in the U.S. there is a battle raging over the census questions about citizenship, and questions about LGBTQ+ people. There were questions that were added by the Obama administration about same-sex marriage and gender identity which the Trump administration stripped from the census questions (we can’t have an accurate count… it might give us more political power and confirm our legitimacy). However, over in Scotland they don’t have a problem with us.

New transgender question in next Census agreed
The Scotsman
By Gina Davidson
May 2, 2019

Transgender people will be able to complete a voluntary question about their gender identity and history after amendments to the new Census Bill legislation were agreed in Holyrood today.

MSPs debating the introduction of new questions to the 2021 Census unanimously agreed changes which would ensure there was no “perceived conflation of sex and gender”.

Government minister Fiona Hyslop told the Culture, Tourism, Europe and External Affairs Committee which has been dealing with the Bill, that her amendments would give “transgender matters” an entry which could be filled out on a purely voluntary basis.

The Bill will also, for the first time, have a voluntary question on sexual orientation.

The bigots here are afraid of us and don’t want us counted.

When we were trying to pass the non-discrimination law for us one of the questions that we heard over and over… “How many trans people live in Connecticut?” and that is a question that Trump doesn’t want answered.

The Equality Act

You probably have heard that the bill has made it out of committee, so what is the opposition says about the bill?

The Equality Act Is about Coercion
The National Review
By The Editors
April 11, 2019

Conservatives have traditionally been opposed to legislation prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. They have believed that market pressures, changing social views, and sub-federal legislation could adequately address problems of wrongful discrimination, while federal legislation would create potential harms to religious freedom. But the Equality Act now gaining steam in Congress goes considerably further than that, and deserves determined opposition.
[…]
Under the bill, all federally funded entities, from educational programs (college sports teams, school bathrooms) to public accommodations (women’s shelters, locker rooms), would be forced to interpret “sex” to include “gender identity.” In other words, to treat men as women if they identify as such, and vice versa.
[…]
Another troubling section of the Equality Act is its finding that “conversion therapy” is a form of discrimination. This is worrisome because the term “conversion therapy” (originally used to describe the controversial practice of trying to change a gay person’s sexual orientation) is increasingly misapplied to tried, tested, and ethical treatments for gender-confused youth that range from counseling to watchful waiting. The Equality Act would set a dangerous precedent that could be interpreted to mandate doctors and therapists to pursue “gender affirmation” therapy, under which American girls as young as 13 and 14 have had their healthy breasts removed.

Then in the Washington Examiner they had this to say about the bill…

There's no evidence at all that the Equality Act will help the economy
By Peter Sprigg
April 30, 2019

A free market economy — the freedom of willing employers and willing employees, willing vendors and willing customers, to contract with each other — has made our country prosperous. There is a role for government in the economy, but government intervention to dictate how American businesses operate should require the most compelling justification.

Unfortunately, that standard seems to have been abandoned by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Their slogan is, “Standing Up for American Enterprise.” Their website declares, “We advocate for pro-business policies that create jobs and grow our economy.” They list “regulatory relief” as a priority issue.

So it seems odd that such a group sent a letter to Congress asking, in effect, “Please regulate us more!” Yet that is what the Chamber did this month by writing to endorse the Equality Act. This bill would add “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” as special protected categories in virtually every federal civil rights law, treating discrimination based on those characteristics as the exact equivalent of racial discrimination.

And BuzzFeed had this to say,

Republicans Are Trying To Kill An LGBT Bill In Congress By Arguing It Hurts Women
“Women, lesbians, and families become the collateral damage.”
By Dominic Holden
April 2, 2019

An LGBT rights bill needs to die — to help women.

That was the message Republicans brought to a rowdy congressional hearing on Tuesday, when conservative lawmakers and think tanks denounced the nondiscrimination bill with increasingly uniform charges of sexism.

The bill’s protections for transgender people, they contend, advance a “radical gender ideology” that will erase and victimize women.

“Women, lesbians, and families become the collateral damage of identity politics,” said Republican Doug Collins of Georgia, ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee.

Collins argued the Democrat-sponsored bill “codifies stereotypes and sexism,” and, “If the Democrats are determined to move this legislation forward anyway, we must recognize that it prioritizes the rights of biological men over the rights of biological women.”

But because it bans discrimination based on a person’s gender identity, Collins and other Republicans contended Tuesday it creates an arbitrary distinction that lets men pretend to be women, blurring the line between sexes, and defines gender by mannerisms and attire. Or, as Collins put it, the bill “nullifies women and girls as coherent categories worthy of civil rights protection.”

So the opposition are using the old tired arguments…

• Men will dress-up as women to rape our young girls in bathrooms
• It will infringe on religious freedom to discriminate
• We can’t beat the girls out of boys
• It will cost businesses money putting money ahead of human rights

It is important that we understand the opposition because then we will be able to better block their message.

Here in Connecticut I read the opposition emails and blogs on a regular bases (I do it after taking my blood pressure meds), the so called “Family” organization is concentrated on the bill to require truth in advertising for abortion clinics; they are against the bill they think that they should be able to lie.

One of the tools to develop an effective strategy is what is called a “Message Box” is divided into four boxes, two boxes on the top row and two boxes on the bottom row

Top row…
What We Say About Us: The reasons people should vote for you
What We Say About Them: The reasons people should vote against your opponent
Bottom row…
What They Say About Us:  The reasons people should vote against you
What They Say About Them: The reasons people should vote for your opponent

So knowing the opposition is an important step in countering the opposition. That means reading conservative news article, signing up for their emails (I use a special email account for their emails), and reading their testimonies for hearings on the bill.

To learn more about activism visit the website “Community Tool Box”

This page lists 46 Chapters through which you can obtain practical, step-by-step guidance in community-building skills. See also our related Toolkits, which offer short outlines for key tasks.

“History Is Written By The Victors”

A corollary to that is “history is written by those who have the best PR firm.”

Stonewall Uprising is coming up on the fiftieth anniversary and the rebellion has been rewritten by the Gays.

50 Years After Stonewall, We’re Still Disagreeing About What Happened There. That’s Why the Archives Matter
Time
By Jason Baumann
April 30, 2019

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Uprising, a moment of resistance by LGBTQ people against homophobia and transphobia, police harassment and exploitation by organized crime. The conflict started in the wee hours of June 28, 1969, and continued for almost a week. The Stonewall Inn was an illegal club, operating without a liquor license, controlled by the mafia and regularly raided by the police. Stonewall was frequented by a range of LGBTQ patrons, mostly gay men, but also lesbians, drag queens and transgender and gender-nonconforming patrons. And beyond the clientele in the club itself, Stonewall existed in the larger context of Greenwich Village, where many queer and transgender youth were living on the streets, abandoned and rejected by their families and the society at large.

Given the tremendous gains made by LGBTQ activists in the intervening years, it can be difficult for people to remember the oppression suffered by LGBTQ people in the United States in the 1950s and ’60s. Homosexuality was illegal in almost every state in the U.S., with legal penalties ranging from three months in jail in New York to possible life in prison in Nevada. Homosexuality was classified as a mental illness by the psychiatric profession; many LGBTQ people spent long hours in psychoanalysis attempting to be cured, and could also be subjected to electroshock therapy or involuntary institutionalization by psychiatrists and unaccepting families. In New York, LGBTQ people could be denied service in bars or arrested for wearing clothing that did not match their legally-assigned gender.

And we still are!

Luckily, there are archives that preserve the original documents from this pivotal time, including political leaflets, posters, little magazines and oral history interviews. The New York Public Library has preserved much of this history, and is presenting a range of these original documents for the public in the Love & Resistance: Stonewall 50 exhibition and a new anthology The Stonewall Reader. These resources allow us to encounter this original historical moment ourselves and better understand how it felt and what it ultimately meant.

One of these documents is this flyer “Where were you during the Christopher St. Riots?” produced by the Mattachine Society of New York shortly after Stonewall.

As those of us that have fought for our right age and pass away it is important that we keep our history alive.

Are you an activist?

Are you saving you correspondence?

I am, why are you not giving your history to be archived? Do you want our history to go the way of Stonewall where the gays claim credit for the uprising… “We were all gay” and as a result trans people and lesbians were written out of the history of Stonewall.

Many college libraries are now starting LGBTQ+ archives, I have donated my trans stuff to the Elihu Burritt Library at Central Connecticut State University. My donation includes the actual bill that Governor Malloy signed for the birth certificate law.


Three of the major archives are…

• The Sexual Minority Archives
• The Transgender Archives
• The Transgender Archives at the University of Victoria

Please consider donation your trans history!

We Are Who We Are

There is more and more evidence that we were born trans, that something went on during fetal development that caused us to be trans. This article popped up on my Facebook feed that is worth a second look even though it is a year old.

Transgender people are born that way, a new study has found
Pink News
By Josh Jackman 
15th March 2018

Transgender people are born that way, according to a new study.

Researchers at the University of São Paulo’s Medical School have compared the brains of trans and cisgender adults, and discovered that they are significantly different.

In the study, it was found that the insula – a region of the brain – had a distinct volume depending on whether it was in the brain of a trans or cis subject.

The insula plays an important role in people’s body image, self-awareness and empathy.
[…]
“We found that trans people have characteristics that bring them closer to the gender with which they identify and their brains have particularities, suggesting that the differences begin to occur during gestation,” he said in a statement.
[…]
“The evidence is building that it’s not a matter of ideology. Our own research based on MRI scans points to a detectable structural basis.”

Professor Geraldo Busatto, who heads the Psychiatric Neuroimaging Laboratory at the university’s hospital, said it would be “simplistic to make a direct link with transgender, but the detection of a difference in the insula is relevant”.

Other studies have found a difference between trans and cis people, one of the studies found that,

We observed thicker cortices in 24 MTF transsexuals compared to 24 age-matched control men in a number of regions across the lateral and medial cortical surfaces.

So there is something going on in our brains that could be one of the causes of gender dysphoria, however the best way to determine if a person is trans is ask.