The Long Spiral Down

What does the U.S., Greece, France, Great Britain, and Germany all have in common?

We share a common thread with all of these nations and that thread is a long downward spiral to the lowest common denominator. The middle class is declining and the middle class is starting to reach for straws, anything that they think can save them.

Make America Great Again!

Make Greece Great Again!

Make France Great Again!

All you have to do is to tap into that fear and direct it toward any convenient minority… the Syrians, the Jews, the Muslims, the blacks, the Mexicans, the Gays, any minority will do. And blame them that it is all their fault that we are going down. It is their fault that we can’t find jobs.

This is what Michael Moore said this summer…

I am sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but I gave it to you straight last summer when I told you that Donald Trump would be the Republican nominee for president. And now I have even more awful, depressing news for you: Donald J. Trump is going to win in November. This wretched, ignorant, dangerous part-time clown and full time sociopath is going to be our next president. President Trump. Go ahead and say the words, ‘cause you’ll be saying them for the next four years: “PRESIDENT TRUMP.”

Never in my life have I wanted to be proven wrong more than I do right now.

I can see what you’re doing right now. You’re shaking your head wildly – “No, Mike, this won’t happen!” Unfortunately, you are living in a bubble that comes with an adjoining echo chamber where you and your friends are convinced the American people are not going to elect an idiot for president. You alternate between being appalled at him and laughing at him because of his latest crazy comment or his embarrassingly narcissistic stance on everything because everything is about him. And then you listen to Hillary and you behold our very first female president, someone the world respects, someone who is whip-smart and cares about kids, who will continue the Obama legacy because that is what the American people clearly want! Yes! Four more years of this!

And he goes to list five reasons why Trump is going to win.

Midwest Math, or Welcome to Our Rust Belt Brexit.  I believe Trump is going to focus much of his attention on the four blue states in the rustbelt of the upper Great Lakes – Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Four traditionally Democratic states – but each of them have elected a Republican governor since 2010 (only Pennsylvania has now finally elected a Democrat). In the Michigan primary in March, more Michiganders came out to vote for the Republicans (1.32 million) that the Democrats (1.19 million). Trump is ahead of Hillary in the latest polls in Pennsylvania and tied with her in Ohio. Tied? How can the race be this close after everything Trump has said and done? Well maybe it’s because he’s said (correctly) that the Clintons’ support of NAFTA helped to destroy the industrial states of the Upper Midwest. Trump is going to hammer Clinton on this and her support of TPP and other trade policies that have royally screwed the people of these four states. When Trump stood in the shadow of a Ford Motor factory during the Michigan primary, he threatened the corporation that if they did indeed go ahead with their planned closure of that factory and move it to Mexico, he would slap a 35% tariff on any Mexican-built cars shipped back to the United States. It was sweet, sweet music to the ears of the working class of Michigan, and when he tossed in his threat to Apple that he would force them to stop making their iPhones in China and build them here in America, well, hearts swooned and Trump walked away with a big victory that should have gone to the governor next-door, John Kasich.

From Green Bay to Pittsburgh, this, my friends, is the middle of England – broken, depressed, struggling, the smokestacks strewn across the countryside with the carcass of what we use to call the Middle Class. Angry, embittered working (and nonworking) people who were lied to by the trickle-down of Reagan and abandoned by Democrats who still try to talk a good line but are really just looking forward to rub one out with a lobbyist from Goldman Sachs who’ll write them nice big check before leaving the room. What happened in the UK with Brexit is going to happen here. Elmer Gantry shows up looking like Boris Johnson and just says whatever shit he can make up to convince the masses that this is their chance! To stick to ALL of them, all who wrecked their American Dream! And now The Outsider, Donald Trump, has arrived to clean house! You don’t have to agree with him! You don’t even have to like him! He is your personal Molotov cocktail to throw right into the center of the bastards who did this to you! SEND A MESSAGE! TRUMP IS YOUR MESSENGER!

And this is where the math comes in. In 2012, Mitt Romney lost by 64 electoral votes. Add up the electoral votes cast by Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. It’s 64. All Trump needs to do to win is to carry, as he’s expected to do, the swath of traditional red states from Idaho to Georgia (states that’ll never vote for Hillary Clinton), and then he just needs these four rust belt states. He doesn’t need Florida. He doesn’t need Colorado or Virginia. Just Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. And that will put him over the top. This is how it will happen in November.

If you look at Fact Check they have the stats on President Obama’s presidency,

Since President Barack Obama first took office:

• The economy has added more than 10 million jobs, and job openings are at a 15-year high.
• The unemployment rate has dropped well below the historical norm, but long-term unemployment remains higher than at the start of the Great Recession.
• The buying power of the average worker’s weekly paycheck is up 4.4 percent.
• Corporate profits are running 152 percent higher, and stock prices have soared.
• The number of immigrants caught trying to enter the U.S. illegally has dropped 53 percent.
• Federal debt has more than doubled, and annual deficits, after shrinking, are again on the rise.
• The home ownership rate has dropped by 4 percentage points.
• The number of Americans on food stamps is up 36 percent.
• Oil imports are down 53 percent, and wind and solar power have quadrupled.
• The number of people lacking health insurance has gone down by 15.2 million.

Those are just some of the findings in our latest installment of Obama’s Numbers.

So why are the middle class angry?

The economy has recovered from the great depression of 2008… or has it?

Pew Research found that,

The wealth gap between America’s high income group and everyone else has reached record high levels since the economic recovery from the Great Recession of 2007-09, with a clear trajectory of increasing wealth for the upper-income families and no wealth growth for the middle- and lower-income families.

A new Pew Research Center analysis of wealth finds the gap between America’s upper-income and middle-income families has reached its highest level on record. In 2013, the median wealth of the nation’s upper-income families ($639,400) was nearly seven times the median wealth of middle-income families ($96,500), the widest wealth gap seen in 30 years when the Federal Reserve began collecting these data.

And where was this felt the most?

In the “Rust Belt” good paying union jobs went to China, Indonesia, Mexico, and other country that pay their employees just pennies a day with no health insurance, no retirement plans, just subsidence wages. The jobs that replaced them were all service jobs.

If you are lucky to have a manufacturing job or an office job you haven't received a meaningful raises in years and are barely keeping your head above water. One little accident, health problem, or other event can put you under water.

Trump win had been predicted by Noam Chomsky six years earlier.

President Donald Trump wins: Noam Chomsky called this political moment 6 years ago
'If somebody comes along who is charismatic and honest this country is in real trouble'
Independent
By Christopher Hooton
Wednesday 9 November 2016

Back in April 2010, Noam Chomsky offered a dark vision of America's future that was easily dismissed. Today, as America votes Donald Trump President-elect, it has turned out to be painfully accurate.

The philosopher, historian and activist warned of the success a "charismatic figure" would have if one ran for office promising to cure society's ills, and listed elements of their campaign that would take them to power. The similarities to Trump are manifold and clear, from military force being exalted (Trump consistently heaps praise on the army and secret service) to the scapegoating of illegal immigrants (Trump has vowed to eject them from the country and build a wall between the US and Mexico).

Here's what he told TruthDig (via Fahad Alhazmi):

“The United States is extremely lucky that no honest, charismatic figure has arisen. Every charismatic figure is such an obvious crook that he destroys himself, like McCarthy or Nixon or the evangelist preachers. If somebody comes along who is charismatic and honest this country is in real trouble because of the frustration, disillusionment, the justified anger and the absence of any coherent response. What are people supposed to think if someone says ‘I have got an answer, we have an enemy’? There it was the Jews. Here it will be the illegal immigrants and the blacks. We will be told that white males are a persecuted minority. We will be told we have to defend ourselves and the honor of the nation. Military force will be exalted. People will be beaten up. This could become an overwhelming force. And if it happens it will be more dangerous than Germany. The United States is the world power. Germany was powerful but had more powerful antagonists. I don’t think all this is very far away. If the polls are accurate it is not the Republicans but the right-wing Republicans, the crazed Republicans, who will sweep the next election.”

Bingo!

The Occupy Wall Street people knew this in 2011.

When the wealth is concentrated into the hand of a few we enter a period of unrest and fascism.

Back in the 1890s we went through another depression that created social unrest. Vassar College said this about the depression,

The Depression of 1893

In its impact on industry and employment, the depression of the 1890s was on a par with the Great Depression of the 1930s. In some places it began before 1890, in a deep agricultural crisis that hit Southern cotton-growing regions and the Great Plains in the late 1880s. The shock hit Wall Street and urban areas in 1893, as part of a massive worldwide economic crisis. A quarter of the nation's railroads went bankrupt; in some cities, unemployment among industrial workers exceeded 20 or even 25 percent.

Americans of different incomes experienced the depression in markedly different ways. In the bitter winter months, some poor families starved and others became wanderers. Unemployed "tramps" crisscrossed the countryside, walking or hiding on freight trains. Many appeared at the back doors of middle-class houses, pleading for work or food.

Despite the obvious structural crisis, many Americans blamed those who could not find work, accusing them of laziness or begging. Some among the unemployed blamed themselves, and stories of despair and suicide ran almost daily in many newspapers.

New York Journal 13 October, 1896

"It is Legal to Starve, but Not to Murder"

Hmm… does this all sound familiar?

You can see the same thing happening in the depression of the 1930, the concentration of wealth in the 1920s brought about a worldwide social unrest and the rise of the NAZI party.

New York Magazine had this article about democracy,

Democracies end when they are too democratic.
And right now, America is a breeding ground for tyranny.
By Andrew Sullivan
May 1, 2016

As this dystopian election campaign has unfolded, my mind keeps being tugged by a passage in Plato’s Republic. It has unsettled — even surprised — me from the moment I first read it in graduate school. The passage is from the part of the dialogue where Socrates and his friends are talking about the nature of different political systems, how they change over time, and how one can slowly evolve into another. And Socrates seemed pretty clear on one sobering point: that “tyranny is probably established out of no other regime than democracy.” What did Plato mean by that? Democracy, for him, I discovered, was a political system of maximal freedom and equality, where every lifestyle is allowed and public offices are filled by a lottery. And the longer a democracy lasted, Plato argued, the more democratic it would become. Its freedoms would multiply; its equality spread. Deference to any sort of authority would wither; tolerance of any kind of inequality would come under intense threat; and multiculturalism and sexual freedom would create a city or a country like “a many-colored cloak decorated in all hues.”

This rainbow-flag polity, Plato argues, is, for many people, the fairest of regimes. The freedom in that democracy has to be experienced to be believed — with shame and privilege in particular emerging over time as anathema. But it is inherently unstable. As the authority of elites fades, as Establishment values cede to popular ones, views and identities can become so magnificently diverse as to be mutually uncomprehending. And when all the barriers to equality, formal and informal, have been removed; when everyone is equal; when elites are despised and full license is established to do “whatever one wants,” you arrive at what might be called late-stage democracy. There is no kowtowing to authority here, let alone to political experience or expertise.
[…]
Could it be that the Donald has emerged from the populist circuses of pro wrestling and New York City tabloids, via reality television and Twitter, to prove not just Plato but also James Madison right, that democracies “have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention … and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths”? Is he testing democracy’s singular weakness — its susceptibility to the demagogue — by blasting through the firewalls we once had in place to prevent such a person from seizing power? Or am I overreacting?

No, I don't think he is overreacting.

Now that I got you thoroughly depressed, how are we going to stop this downward spiral to worldwide economic disaster?

Well in 1890s, and the 1930s wars brought us out of the economic and social crises and I don’t think we want a World War III.

What we know…
Communism doesn’t work
Socialism doesn’t work
Capitalism doesn’t work

Communism has no incentive to get ahead, socialism drains the economy, and capitalism concentrates the wealth.

Here is what I think would work… return the trade tariffs and give favorable status to nations that protect their workforce by allowing workers to organize. Otherwise we are on the path to the lowest common denominator, how can we compete with a country that pays its workers pennies with no benefits?

Did you know that during the sixties when we had the greatest economic growth in our history the top tax bracket was 90%! We have to raise the top tax brackets not lower them.

What we have learned from President Reagan was that trickledown theory doesn’t work, all the wealth stays at the top. What does work is having a strong middle class to go out and buy things.

I am a strong believer in John Kenneth Galbraith and John Maynard Keynes theories that government’s role is to provide balance between labor and business and to simulate the economy.

Galbraith said,

Should society then simply pursue a policy of laissez-faire, counting on these economic forces to produce the social good? Galbraith answered with a resounding "No." In the preface of his Economics and the Public Purpose he stated, "On no conclusion is this book more clear: Left to themselves, economic forces do not work out for the best except perhaps, for the powerful."

While Keynesian Economics…

The central tenet of this school of thought is that government intervention can stabilize the economy.

I believe that socialism does not work and unfettered capitalism does not work, what we have to have is a modification between the two… we need a safety net. We see unfettered capitalism in the healthcare industry with the price of drugs skyrocketing with pharmaceutical companies make huge profits.

As I mentioned earlier corporate profits are 152 percent higher, and stock prices are at record levels but that money hasn’t trickled down. Companies have amassed fortunes in cash and are gobbling up each other with their billions in cash.

Priming the pump.Injection of (relatively small) sums of money by a government into a depressed economy through commissioning of public works. Its objective is to increase purchasing power of people that will stimulate demand which in turn will boost private sector investment ... and so more and more money will be pumped into the economy.

What the Republicans are planning is not going to work. Cutting the budget and balancing the budget is not going to work and it is going to have the exact opposite affect because it is not addressing the cause of unrest in this country, the loss of high paying jobs overseas.

Without tariffs jobs will go to the lowest paid worker. It is a basic tenant of business, I don’t know about you but when I had my roof done I went for the guy who said he could do it for $19,000 not the guy who said he would do it for $23,000.

What I believe is…

We need to do is tax the upper income brackets more and not flatten out the brackets
We need to make education affordable to all and not just for the rich.
We need to stimulate research and manufacturing here in the U.S. and not allow companies to take our research dollars to develop products and then manufacture them overseas.
We need to help developing countries bring their workforce up our level and not bring ours down to their level.
We need to prime the pump by rebuilding our infrastructure.
We need to fund new research, but unlike in the past government funded research should belong to the people not the corporations or a partnership and it has to be built here in the U.S. and not manufactured overseas.

 We need to break the downward spiral to fascism and global unrest.

---

I suggest reading "Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By" by Barbara Ehrenreich

Our sharpest and most original social critic goes "undercover" as an unskilled worker to reveal the dark side of American prosperity.

Millions of Americans work full time, year round, for poverty-level wages. In 1998, Barbara Ehrenreich decided to join them. She was inspired in part by the rhetoric surrounding welfare reform, which promised that a job -- any job -- can be the ticket to a better life. But how does anyone survive, let alone prosper, on $6 an hour? To find out, Ehrenreich left her home, took the cheapest lodgings she could find, and accepted whatever jobs she was offered. Moving from Florida to Maine to Minnesota, she worked as a waitress, a hotel maid, a cleaning woman, a nursing-home aide, and a Wal-Mart sales clerk. She lived in trailer parks and crumbling residential motels. Very quickly, she discovered that no job is truly "unskilled," that even the lowliest occupations require exhausting mental and muscular effort. She also learned that one job is not enough; you need at least two if you int to live indoors.

Nickel and Dimed reveals low-rent America in all its tenacity, anxiety, and surprising generosity -- a land of Big Boxes, fast food, and a thousand desperate stratagems for survival. Read it for the smoldering clarity of Ehrenreich's perspective and for a rare view of how "prosperity" looks from the bottom. You will never see anything -- from a motel bathroom to a restaurant meal -- in quite the same way again.

And it is still true today.

A Mother’s Love… Not!

There is supposed to be nothing stronger than a mother’s love but that is not always the case when her child is lesbian, gay, bi, trans, or queer.

The homeless shelters are filled of children whose parents through them out of the house. I know of a number of trans people who have no contact with their parents. One person that I know is estranged from their family, they are all deeply religious and could not accept their child transitioning and he hasn’t had any contact with them in over twenty years.

Minnesota Mom Sues Her Trans Child Over Gender Reassignment
A Minnesota mom filed a lawsuit Wednesday against her 17-year-old transgender daughter, along with county health boards, a school district and local health care nonprofits.
NBC Out
By Mary Emily O'Hara
November 17, 2016

"It was brought to my knowledge that my son (sic) began receiving hormone replacement treatments from Park Nicollet Health Services to transition from male to female, with medical assistance paying for this," Anmarie Calgaro told reporters in a St. Paul, Minnesota court. "I was not consulted or informed about this in any way."

In a video of the press conference posted to Facebook, Calgaro and attorney Erick Kaardal repeatedly refer to the teen in question as male—despite a doctor's letter included in the complaint that states the teen "has had appropriate, permanent clinical treatment for transition to the new female gender."

Now there is a real loving mother who denies her daughters existence.

Minnesota does not have a legal process for the emancipation of minors. But the law makes it clear that minors who aren't living at home are essentially considered adults when it comes to medical care: "Any minor who is living separate and apart from parents ... and who is managing personal financial affairs, regardless of the source or extent of the minor's income, may give effective consent to personal medical, dental, mental and other health services, and the consent of no other person is required."

And the thing of it the daughter began the emancipation procedure back in June 2015! And the mother is just contesting it now.

The emancipation notice was filed in Stearns County District Court in October 2015. But Calgaro disputed the claims about her relationship with her child, and expressed frustration that she was left out of the teen's subsequent health care decisions.

Also included in the complaint was a doctor's letter dated January 2016 that stated the teen had undergone gender transition treatment and should be issued new identity documents with female gender markers.

"The news that county agencies and health service providers, the school and other county and state offices were completely bypassing me came as a total shock," Calgaro said while beginning to cry. "Why wasn't I even notified?"

Where did she think she was for the twelve months? Didn’t she notice that she wasn’t around all that time?

Somehow I don’t think she is going to win.

It Happened Again

When hate gets stirred up there is no stopping it and it begins to spread. Last week it was in Tennessee where a trans woman’s truck we spray painted and set on fire and now a Colorado trans woman’s SUV was sprayed painted.

What exactly does the new Denver social pot initiative do?
NBC 9NEWS
November 15, 2016

DENVER - A transgender woman walked out to her car in Denver’s Capitol Hill neighborhood Wednesday to find it spray painted with swastikas and hateful words.

"I actually got up to leave for work," Amber Timmons said, "Just like any other day would be. Then I come upon my car and I see the spray paint on it."

“Die f** he she” was written on one side of the car. “Tranny dip” was written on another side of the car. “Trump!!” was written on the car’s hood.

"You don't think that it's really going to happen in Denver. Denver's not that kind of town," she said, while describing her feelings as fear and shock.

Timmons’ friends helped her clean the car Wednesday morning and got most of the paint off.

Other neighbors left notes of support and sympathy on her windshield.

Even here in Connecticut, blue state there have been a rash of vandalizing of buildings and cars with spray paint, in Danbury in one high school some students offensive and defamatory comments and in Stafford and East Windsor some high school students dressed up in KKK robes at a keg party.

Breaking New Ground?

There are a number of trans models that are appearing on magazine covers and the headlines declares they are breaking new ground.

Two transgender models have just landed a major fashion campaign
Business Insider
By Rachel Lubitz, Mic
November 16, 2016

From Andreja Pejic modeling for Reformation and Kenneth Cole to Hari Nef modeling for H&M and Camper x Eckhaus Latta, transgender models continue to make tremendous strides in the fashion industry.

To keep that momentum going, two transgender models, Benjamin Melzer and Loiza Lamers, have teamed up in a new campaign for a collaboration between the denim brand Diesel and the German clothing company About You.

"Diesel contacted me for a campaign around the same time Loiza and I were planning on doing a concept shoot to raise awareness to create more opportunities for transgender models in campaigns for major brands," Melzer said in an interview. "Diesel heard the idea and loved it."

Previously the pair had already made history, Melzer as the first transgender man on the cover of Men's Health in Germany and Lamers as the first transgender model to win Holland's Next Top Model.

I am old enough to remember a trans model who was not only a model for a major company but also was in a James Bond movie.

However, at the time she wasn’t out and when she was outed by a British newspaper she was fired.

Caroline (Tula) Cossey who transitioned in the eighties lead the way for all other trans models.

This Trans Supermodel Was Outed In The ‘80s, Lost Everything And Became A Pioneer
“As painful as it was to endure what I did in my life, it’s all worth it when you hear you’ve saved lives or helped people find direction in theirs.”
Huffington Post
By JamesMichael Nichols
June 19, 2016

Long before Laverne Cox, Caitlyn Jenner, or any of the trans women currently making waves in entertainment, fashion and culture, there was Caroline Cossey.

Born in England in the 1950s, Cossey came to live as her authentic self and rose to prominence in the fashion world at a time when it was extremely dangerous — and potentially career-ending — to be transgender. With roots as a showgirl and performer, Cossey went on to work as a model under the name “Tula.” Living full-time as a woman — and not openly transgender — she appeared in the James Bond film “For Your Eyes Only” and modeled for Playboy.

Following these two high-profile appearances, Cossey was outed by a tabloid as transgender and lost everything — in both her career and personal life. The years that followed the outing, in the words of Cossey, “propelled me into the realm of activism” as she engaged in a high-profile legal battle with the British government. “I wasn’t going to spend the rest of my life feeling ashamed or apologizing for it and I didn’t think anyone else should either,” she says.

I remember when I first read about I was transfixed, here was a trans woman who was beautiful, intelligent, and trans. I watched her in the talk television shows of the day like Merve Griffin and I went out and bought Playboy to read an article about her.

Healthcare!

One of the questions that I hear most is “Where can I find a trans friendly doctor?” there is an article in Scientific America about the history of trans healthcare.

A History of Transgender Healthcare
As the stigma of being transgender begins to ease, medicine is starting to catch up
By Farah Naz Khan
November 16, 2016

An estimated 1.4 million Americans, close to 0.6 percent of the population of the United States, identify as transgender. And, today, the topic of transgender health care is more widely discussed than ever before. Despite this, lost in the shuffle between conversations about equal access to bathrooms and popular culture icons is the history of a piece of modern medicine that should no longer remain so elusive. To be willing to embrace the future of this pivotal area of healthcare, it is imperative to understand the piecemeal roots and evolution of transgender medicine.

Magnus Hirschfeld, a German physician who could easily be considered the father of transgender health care, coined the term “transvestite” in 1918 at his Institute for Sexual Science in Berlin. Defining transvestism as the desire to express one’s gender in opposition to their defined sex, Hirschfeld and his colleagues used this now antiquated label as a gateway to the provision of sex changing therapies and as a means to protect his patients. Going against the grain, Hirschfeld was one of the first to offer his patients the means to achieve sex change, either through hormone therapy, sex change operations, or both.

In a time when his contemporaries aimed to “cure” transgender patients of their alleged mental affliction, Hirschfeld’s Adaptation Theory supported those who wanted to live according to the gender they felt most aligned with, as opposed to the gender that their sex obligated them to abide by. Much of the history of the institute’s early works were destroyed in the wake of the Nazi book burnings in 1933, but as far as history can prove, Hirschfeld’s institute was the first to offer gender reassignment surgery.

The article goes on to talk about Danish painter Lili Elbe, Dr. Alfred Kinsey, Christine Jorgensen, Henry Benjamin, and others.

The article says this about Kinsey,

World War II and Nazi Germany forced Hirschfeld into exile and this along with the destruction of his Berlin institute, minimal further advancements were made by his group at that time. Pioneering influences in America began emerging in the 1940s, including Dr. Alfred Kinsey, the biologist who founded the Institute for Sex Research at Indiana University in 1947 (now known as the Kinsey Institute). Kinsey was one of the first to use the term transsexual in his gender studies, and he helped introduce America to a concept that for some reason still seems foreign to many today despite its obvious place in history for years.

Unfortunately, because it seems “foreign” to many we are now facing backlash and draconian laws.

Modern transgender healthcare encompasses all of the above, along with a shift in focus on patient care. Our transgender patients are like all of our other patients, and their gender identity is just one facet of their overall identity. Multidisciplinary clinics that focus on key issues for transgender patients are important, because they can provide access to subspecialists who can focus on hormone therapy, fertility questions, mental health, etc—but equally important is the understanding that transgender patients need to be able to see a primary care physician for their common cold without fear of stigma due to their gender identity. We can only hope that these widespread stigmas and hesitancies will dissipate with time, because as history has clearly proven, where there is a will, there most certainly is a way.

In some parts of the country we still face widespread discrimination in the healthcare industry and in some states the legislatures are proposing laws to make it legal for doctors not to treat us.

Read It And Weep

You want bad? This is just some of the things president-elect Trump could do.

These Are The LGBT Rights Trump Could Start Reversing On Day One
Donald Trump’s campaign vowed to scrub Obama’s executive actions, and his transition is led by anti-LGBT figures. This is what’s on the table for LGBT people.
BuzzFeed
By Dominic Holden
Posted on Nov. 11, 2016

LGBT people have been freaking out about Donald Trump. Many are hurrying to plan weddings before Inauguration Day, afraid the president-elect will overturn marriage equality immediately.

On the list is,

1. Trump could repeal executive orders that protect LGBT federal workers and contractors.
2. Trump could withdraw guidance that protects transgender students.
3. Instead, Trump could issue school guidance that says the opposite.

This one is really bad because Title IX supersedes state law.

4. Trump could reinstate a ban on transgender military service (and a ban on gay people in the military).
6. Trump could start repealing health care regulations.

And this one could also include Medicare and Medicaid.

7. Trump could also reverse a rule protecting LGBT people in federal housing.
8. Trump could expand religious exemptions for entities receiving federal money.
9. Trump could undo other regulations, guidance, and plans.
The Obama administration has taken at least a dozen other regulatory and directive actions for LGBT people: dialing back a ban on gay men donating blood, appointing an LGBT liaison at the White House, making it easier for transgender people to change sex markers on their passports, collecting data on anti-LGBT hate crimes, sending a letter to schools encouraging them to allow allowing gay–straight alliances, and more.

The Human Rights Campaign, the country’s largest LGBT group, worries about how Trump could leverage executive power on LGBT people and other groups.

“We are deeply concerned about these executive orders and statements he’s made about deporting millions of people,” said Jay Brown, a spokesperson for the group. “This administration gives us great reason to band together and fight as a unified coalition with our progressive allies.”

He could also overturn the policy that allows same-sex couple hospital rights.

Obama blocked Congress from defunding Planned Parenthood now there will nothing to stop them from doing that. In the states that have defunded Planned Parenthood there are epidemics of STD. Can you imagine what would happen if they are defunded nationwide? Planned Parenthood also supplies hormones to many trans people who cannot afford them.

Have a nice day!

It Didn't Last Long

The VA was looking for funds to cover Gender Confirming Surgery for veterans.

VA drops plans to cover surgery for transgender vets
The Hill
By Rebbecca Kheel
November 14, 2016

The Department of Veterans Affairs has dropped plans to start covering gender transition surgery for veterans amid concerns about costs.

The proposed rule change that would have allowed the VA to pay for such surgeries was withdrawn from the Fall 2016 Unified Agenda, a biannual publication of proposed regulation changes that was due Monday.

“VA has been and will continue to explore a regulatory change that would allow VA to perform gender alteration surgery and a change in the medical benefits package, when appropriated funding is available,” the VA said in a statement Monday.
[…]
In dropping its plan for the time being, the VA did not dispute the medical necessity of surgery.

“Increased understanding of both gender dysphoria and surgical techniques in this area has improved significantly and is now widely accepted as medically necessary treatment,” the VA said.

Putting the rule change on hold puts into question when and if it will happen in the future, given that Republicans opposed to the change will control the White House and Congress come January.

Sadly it doesn’t look good for our trans veterans, hopefully, Medicare with still cover medicinally necessary healthcare.

You Think We Have It Hard

In Indonesia they had to hold their pageant in secret so they wouldn’t be attacked by the religious police.

Indonesia Miss Transgender Crowned in a Slap for Hard-Liners
NBC Out
By Associated Press
November 14, 2016

Transgender people and gay activists from across Indonesia have defied a wave of hatred against sexual minorities to crown a Miss Transgender at a national pageant held in absolute secrecy.

A handful of journalists were notified just a few hours in advance of the location of the event, held in the capital, Jakarta, to prevent any attempts by Islamic hard-liners to shut down the pageant. And because of the risk of discovery and violence, organizers asked those present not to post anything on social media during the contest.
[…]
Indonesia's conservatives want to push LGBT people back into the margins of society and deny them legal rights. It's an agenda that has capitalized on low levels of awareness in a society where open discussion of sexuality is often frowned upon. But it also clashes with the traditions of some cultures in ethnically diverse Indonesia that have for centuries allowed space for different genders and sexual identities.

"If the public knew in advance that there will be such an event, those who use religion as their mask could attack us. That's why we kept it secret until the last minute," said pageant organizer Nancy Iskandar.

"The radicals are very arrogant. I'm afraid that it could erupt into physical confrontation," Iskandar said. "We don't want them to step on us forever. What's in it for them anyway? We're not doing any harm."

And the police…

Indonesia's police often side with or look the other way when Islamic hard-liners attack or intimidate LGBT groups, religious minorities, women's rights groups and any cultural events they take exception to.

Will this how we become in a few years?

In states under Republican control will we have to hide for fear of being attacked? Will the police look the other way?

Que Sera Sera

How many of you remember Doris Day signing Que Sera Sera?

Whatever will be, will be and we won’t get much choice in the matter once the House and Senate goes back in session after January 20^th.

The Mike Pence (Donald Trump) Assault On LGBTQ Equality Is Already Underway
It’s only a matter of time before we know the full magnitude.
Huffington Post (Gay Voices)
By Michelangelo Signorile
November 12, 2016

I’m not going to sugarcoat this at all. We are in for a full-blown assault on LGBTQ rights the likes of which many, particularly younger LGBTQ people, have not seen. Progress will most certainly be halted completely, likely rolled back. And it’s already underway.

First, forget any of your thinking that Donald Trump is from New York City, probably has gay friends, sent Elton John a congratulatory note on his civil union in 2005, used the acronym “LGBTQ” (in pitting gays against Muslims at the Republican National Convention, when he vowed only to protect us from a “hateful foreign ideology”) or any other superficial things you may have read or heard.

Ronald Reagan was from Hollywood, and he, too, had many gay friends, including legendary actor Rock Hudson. Reagan even came out against an anti-gay state initiative while he was governor of California. But once Reagan made his pact with the religious right leaders in his 1980 successful run for the presidency ― for him, among them was Jerry Falwell, Sr., for Trump it’s Jerry Falwell Jr.― he had to bow to them if he wanted to get re-elected in 1984. That meant letting thousands of gay men, transgender women, African-Americans and other affected groups die from AIDS (including his friend Hudson) without even saying the word “AIDS” until years into the plague, let alone take leadership on fighting the epidemic with government dollars and research.

The article goes on to say,

I’m not going to sugarcoat this at all. We are in for a full-blown assault on LGBTQ rights the likes of which many, particularly younger LGBTQ people, have not seen. Progress will most certainly be halted completely, likely rolled back. And it’s already underway.

First, forget any of your thinking that Donald Trump is from New York City, probably has gay friends, sent Elton John a congratulatory note on his civil union in 2005, used the acronym “LGBTQ” (in pitting gays against Muslims at the Republican National Convention, when he vowed only to protect us from a “hateful foreign ideology”) or any other superficial things you may have read or heard.

Ronald Reagan was from Hollywood, and he, too, had many gay friends, including legendary actor Rock Hudson. Reagan even came out against an anti-gay state initiative while he was governor of California. But once Reagan made his pact with the religious right leaders in his 1980 successful run for the presidency ― for him, among them was Jerry Falwell, Sr., for Trump it’s Jerry Falwell Jr.― he had to bow to them if he wanted to get re-elected in 1984. That meant letting thousands of gay men, transgender women, African-Americans and other affected groups die from AIDS (including his friend Hudson) without even saying the word “AIDS” until years into the plague, let alone take leadership on fighting the epidemic with government dollars and research.

It is going to be a long, long four years; hopefully the mid-term elections might bring changes but we cannot count on it.

The Race Is On

How fast can you run down to your local Society Security office and passport office?

Who knows what will change after January 20^th?

Transgender people are scrambling to update their documentation
They aren’t sure what will happen after January 20.
Think Progress
By Zack Ford
November 11, 2016

The Trump presidency presents a major threat to the basic legal rights of LGBT people, who have expressed their terror in multiple news stories this week. In the wake of the election, transgender people in particular are acting with urgency.

One of the primary challenges transgender people face is making sure that their legal documentation matches their names and gender identities. This can include their birth certificates, driver’s licenses, social security cards, and passports, as examples. While the accessibility of adjusting some of those documents varies from state to state (particularly birth certificates, which in some states can never be changed), many of the federal documents can be updated quite easily.

For example, in 2010, the State Department — under the leadership of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton — updated its policy to make it very simple for transgender people to obtain a passport identifying their correct name and gender identity. It’s also relatively easy to make sure the Social Security Administration’s records reflect the correct name and gender marker.

The article has a Q&A with Chase Strangio, a staff attorney with the ACLU’s LGBT & AIDS Project

THINKPROGRESS: Almost all of the protections transgender people currently have at the federal level have come from executive action and departmental guidance. What does a Trump/Pence White House look like for transgender people?

CHASE STRANGIO: It is hard to anticipate precisely what a Trump/Pence White House looks like for transgender people but certainly there are reasons to be concerned about what lies ahead for our community. Particularly for trans immigrants, Muslim people who are trans, and trans people of color, the prospect of a Trump presidency is particularly terrifying.

With many important protections coming through executive agency action, trans people will have to fight to maintain those and if we lose those protections, our already vulnerable community will be even more vulnerable to government-sanctioned and private discrimination.

That is why I suggest changing all of your documents as soon as possible because it is a great big unknown what will happen once the Republicans get their hand on all of the Executive Orders that President Obama issued. Will they go back to requiring surgery to change those documents? Will they do away with changing Society Security, Medicare, and passports all together or with they leave the orders intact? It is anyone’s guess.

Being Pined

There is a movement with allies wearing safety pins to show they are a safe place, but being an ally is a lot more than wearing a safety pin.

So You Want to Wear a Safety Pin
Isobeldebrujah.com
November 12, 2016

Great. This is a necessary behavior in the face of the election of the most overtly racist, sexist, xenophobic, anti- gender and sexual minority candidate in the history of the modern United States. You know the rhetoric of his campaign was wrong. It was the very worst thing about America and you want to do what you can to combat the result. Good. Do that.

But don’t do it without a plan. Because the very last thing a tense situation needs is someone full of good intentions but with no knowledge of de-escalation tactics or self-defense. Your intentions are not a tangible shield. If you don’t make a plan, you will get yourself or the person you are trying to defend very killed.

Let’s avoid that.

The first thing that they write about is,

Know What The Pin Means.It is a sign that you are a safe person. A marginalized person who is being harassed will look to you to help keep them safe. By wearing the safety pin you make a public pledge to be a walking, talking safe space for the marginalized. All of the marginalized. You don’t get to pick and choose. You can’t protect GSM people but ignore the Muslim woman who needs help. You can’t stand for Black people who are dealing with racial slurs but ignore the disabled person who is dealing with a physical attack.

This is all or nothing. If you aren’t willing or able to stand up for everyone, don’t wear the pin.

The last sentence is so important, you cannot go half way.

The article goes on to say,

How Much Are You Willing to Risk?
This is the most important question. Before you get involved, you have to decide how much you are willing to risk in the interaction. Depending on how privileged and/or sheltered you are, you may be unaware that these kind of interactions can get violent and they can get that way fast.

Are you willing to have violence in your life? Are you willing to be violent in defense of the marginalized? If you’re not willing, that’s fine. Not everyone is. But you need to be realistic. If you wear the safety pin, you are telling people you are willing to confront violence on their behalf. And if you’re not willing to do that, don’t wear the pin.

The article asks the questions…

Do You Know How to De-escalate?
What Will You Do if De-Escalation Doesn’t Work?
What Will You Do if The Situation Gets Violent?

An article in Quartz writes,

Concrete steps that Americans who care about social justice can take now
Two days after Donald Trump pulled off his election victory, an old friend, a tech company executive, sent me a note.

“I’ve always considered myself fairly progressive, but this election has been a wake up call,” he wrote. “Truth be told, I’ve never actually DONE ANYTHING to champion the causes and values which are now so gravely under threat under President Trump (and I stare in slack-jawed astonishment at those two words even as I write them). So yes, his victory is partly on me. I’ve always talked a good game, but really I’ve dropped the ball.”

He, like others who opposed Trump’s candidacy and values, heard the election results as a call to action. As Quartz’s Jenny Anderson put it, “We will fight to make the country better, a country where hate has no place. We will show respect, kindness, and resolve.”

But how? As the initial shock wears off, it’s a question many are asking. There are some excellent guides out there already, including this one by Anil Dash and this one by Aaron Sorkin. Here are our strategies.

Some of the ideas they put forward are,

Be an ally, and support vulnerable groups
As reports of racist attacks roll in, many already are scared, as well as dismayed, by the direction the country has taken.

Within hours of the election result, a colleague reached out to me and others in our office who are of South Asian descent. “If people feel unsafe EVER walking outside the office, commuting, etc., I am happy to collaborate and find ways to make sure people feel safe and empowered,” she said. Her kind gesture moved me to tears.
[…]
Be vigilant. If you see a person under attack, don’t be a silent bystander. Intervene strategically to keep yourself and others as safe as possible, as described by my Quartz colleague Akshat Rathi.

Connect with people when it’s most difficult to
Even as our world becomes more electronically connected, the US remains disconcertedly divided—as this election illustrated all too clearly. The comedian Stephen Colbert pointed out during his election-night special that people on both sides of the country’s political divide are actually afraid of those who disagree with them.

This isn’t a problem that’s easy to fix, but it certainly helps to reach out beyond your circles and diverge from your beaten paths, both on social media and in real life. Engage meaningfully, even—especially—when it’s most difficult to do so.

Some non-profits are training their staff on LGBT issues and are giving out little rainbow stickers to put on their ID badges. However, we emphasis that it is a lot more than rainbow stickers, it is ongoing training and making sure new employees receive the training, it is making sure that their employees are really LGBT friendly because training will not make someone a LGBT ally. It will do more harm if someone who isn’t friendly has a sticker and then makes disparaging comments.

We welcome allies but we want allies who will protect our backs.

Few And Far Between

Couples that stay together after one of the partners’ transition are very few in numbers, most relationships break up after one transitions.

Husband’s gender transition ‘made marriage stronger’
Stowe
November 13, 2016

A County Durham couple’s marriage is “stronger than ever” they claim, despite the husband starting to live as a woman.

Soon after the birth of their third child, Stephen told his wife Fiona that he wanted to change his gender.

The wife was initially shocked and confused, telling her husband that “if that were to happen, [they] wouldn’t be married anymore”. However, she eventually agreed to visit a gender identity clinic with him, even if she “sat in the car and didn’t want to be involved”.

The husband did not transition at that point, but by 2013 he could not take living as a man anymore, had his changed by deed poll from Stephen to Stephanie.
[…]
However, having gone through counselling with Stephanie, Fiona says she now understands that her husband “is still the same person but is much happier now living true to herself”.

Some couples can bridge the gap but others can’t

For a couple when one transitions they become same-sex partners and their whole world changes and a lesbian couple all of sudden become a straight couple and for many that is too much to handle.

A couple that I know, when the husband transitioned all of a sudden the wife could no longer fall asleep on her shoulder without stares. They could no longer hold hands walking down the street without vulgar comments.

Another couple that was a lesbian couple has lost the comradery of a lesbian space and now are shunned by the community. They have since broken up; it was too hard on her.

While another couple broke up when the husband transitioned but were back together after a couple of years.

Those who have stayed together are few and far between.

Saturday 9: Ballad of Gilligan's Island

Crazy Sam’s Saturday 9: Ballad of Gilligan's Island (1964)

On Saturdays I take a break from the heavy stuff and have some fun…
Unfamiliar with this week's tune? Hear it here.

1) This is about the fateful cruise of the S.S. Minnow. If you had a boat, what would christen it?
Damn Yankee
I miss read the first question, I guess I was still half asleep... a bottle of beer. It wouldn't be a big boat nothing ostentatious so no champagne.

2)  "No phone! No lights! No motorcar! Not a single luxury!" To Sam, those sound more like everyday essentials than luxuries. If you were shipwrecked with the gang, what standard amenity would you miss the most?
A hot shower!

3) The uncharted isle was in the Pacific, near Hawaii. Have you ever been to our 50th state?
Nope, but I would like to visit it sometime.

4) Natalie Schafer, who played Mrs. Howell, refused to divulge her age. Are you honest about how old you are? Or do you fudge it?
I’m honest about my age, I see no reason to lie about your age. I look at it as a badge of honor that I made it this far and I told my brother that I want a tee shirt when I turn 70 that says “I survived the sixties” you can take it either way,

5) Gilligan's Island featured many dream sequences. (Like the one where Gilligan dozes off and dreams that he's Jack from Jack and the Beanstalk.) Have you had any vivid dreams lately?
I think I have but I can’t remember them when I wake up.

6) The pilot was filmed in November, 1963, in Honolulu. The cast and crew were actually onset when they learned of President Kennedy's assassination.* Because on location filming was so expensive, they couldn't afford to take any time off.  Tell us about a time when you had to work, even though your heart and head weren't in it. 
Oh many, many times at work, one time we had to work all through Christmas shutdown including Christmas and New Year Eve but boy did I bring in the money that week. I worked 60 hours and got triple time. But it happened many more times once I became the supervisor on salary, all I got then was a pat on the back.

7) During the show's run, Mary Ann (Dawn Wells) was the clear fan favorite, receiving twice as many love letters as Ginger (Tina Louise). Have you ever written a fan letter (or posted a fan tweet or Facebook post)?
Nope.

8) Sam chose this week's song because it was going through her head, over and over again! Tell us a song that burrows into your head and stays there.
You asked for it…

Now see if you can get it out of your head as it burrows in.

9)  Random question: You went to a discount store and got an amazing bargain -- a pair of dress shoes for just $4.99. You go to a formal event and someone compliments you on those great shoes and asks where you got them. Do you tell the truth?
I don’t know. I never had that problem; I suppose that it would depend on who asked, if it was a friend yes but a stranger I would have to think about that before I answered.

Standing Up

I wrote a couple of weeks ago I wrote about a sorority pledging a trans woman, well another sorority is in the news.

Enraged Sorority Members Quit After Parent Organization Warns Them About Admitting a Transgender Pledge
“I left because I’m not participating in a system like that,” said former chapter president Kristen Reeves. “I refuse to take part in it, and by staying, for me, it would be allowing it to happen.”
Out.com
By Natalie Whalen
November 10, 2016

When the Alpha Omicron Pi sorority at Tufts University decided that they wanted to offer a spot to a trans pledge, the national organization tried to stop them from extending a bid. Now, over half of the chapter's members—including the president—have left.

The trans student has since been admitted, but those members who walked away from the organization say that it's too late.

According to the former president, Kristen Reeves, it was the sorority's Title IX (a federal law that restricts single-sex educational organizations) exemption that the national governing group was trying to protect.

“They were like, ‘well, we’re not saying you never could, we’re just saying right now you can’t.’ I was really mad about this, as was the rest of the chapter, so we unanimously decided to give her a bid anyway.”

It was nice that national finally came around to the idea.

I wonder is a fraternity would feel the same way and allow a trans man to join.

More Calls Then Ever

We are seeking help more…

Transgender People Are Calling Support Hotlines In Record Numbers In The Wake Of The Election
Bustle
By Sam Schooler
November 10, 2016

The effect that a Donald Trump presidency will have on the world isn't clear, but the repercussions his election has on the LGBTQ community are already apparent. Trans Lifeline, the only support hotline catering specifically to transgender people, has received more calls in the 24-hour period surrounding election night than in any 24-hour period before, the hotline tells Bustle. As of 4:45 p.m. EST on Nov. 9, Trans Lifeline had received 400 calls from struggling transgender people.

"Trans people are scared right now," says Greta Martela, co-founder and executive director of the organization, in an interview with Bustle. "We answered 97 calls in the last 24 hours, which is a lot of calls. We saw 400 and some-odd calls come in — we couldn't answer all of them coming in."
[…]
"It's too early for us to be able to compile statistics," he says in a phone call with Bustle, "But I can tell you anecdotally that we're definitely hearing from the LGBTQ community specifically about their fears about what happened [Tuesday] night. They're expressing concerns that rights that were available in their area may be rolled back."

If you need help here a some places where you can  talk to someone…

If you need immediate help and are thinking about self-harm call 911

Detransistioning

Many trans people want to deny the fact that some trans people detransition and many that do detransition start proselytizing against us. This popped up on my Facebook feed…

Dispelling the Myths Around Trans People Detransitioning
Vice
By Amber Roberts
November 17, 2015

In the past month, the press has highlighted a number of trans people who have decided to reverse their transition, or 'de-transition'. Chelsea Attonley was described by The Mirror as "want[ing] taxpayers to reverse breast and gender reassignment surgery," whilst Ria Cooper was described by The Daily Mail as "Britain's youngest sex swap patient to reverse her sex change treatment." At first glance, it's easy to see why those unsupportive of trans rights would swoop up these cases as confirmation of their biases.

But instead of moaning about how much transgender reversal surgery would cost the NHS, I set out to speak to the people wanting to undergo surgery again, to find out why they'd considered embarking on the process of detransitioning. What they told me painted an altogether different picture from that of the aforementioned articles. It turns out that after speaking to both Ria and Chelsea, neither of them actually wanted to – or indeed ended up – detransitioning permanently, and their reasons for questioning their transition were not as clear cut as the Mail and the Mirror had made them out to be.
[…]
Chelsea chose to start her detransition because she felt lost. "I felt that I didn't fit into the male gender role, and I didn't fit into the female gender role, I was this third gender." Chelsea felt she was always viewed as a trans woman and not simply a woman. "One day I looked in the mirror and I thought to myself 'God, if I can't even look like a woman and I don't feel like a woman, I'm not going to be a woman.'"
[…]
This may explain why it's more common for someone who has originally transitioned from male to female to want to detransition; the eight most common examples of those who have detransitioned are all male to female to male. According to Dr Bowers, female to male to female detransitions are almost unheard of. "I've never heard of a female to male detransition and I think that's fascinating – you never hear it because they're so convincing as men. It would be difficult to imagine. I've just never heard of it happening."

And Rita said,

Ria was on hormone blockers and then oestrogen but stopped taking them because she had a mental breakdown and couldn't leave the house or afford the trips to London to visit the hospital. "I'd never say that I made the wrong decision in transitioning because I didn't, but I was going through so much," she tells me. "I was doing escorting and then I got attacked by a client. Everything just went wrong for me and that's why I had a breakdown."

While for the guys, Dr. Bowers said,

…According to Dr Bowers, female to male to female detransitions are almost unheard of. "I've never heard of a female to male detransition and I think that's fascinating – you never hear it because they're so convincing as men. It would be difficult to imagine. I've just never heard of it happening."

The number of trans people who detransition is very low, some estimates put it at around 1%. I know of only one person who detransitioned and she (I use she because that is how I believe she sees herself even though she is now presenting as male) when she told me that she couldn’t find employment as a woman and her wife couldn’t make enough for the two of them to survive. Her wife’s parents in Kansas offered to take them in only if she detransitioned.

I believe that many trans people who detransition do so because they cannot integrate into society, or because of social pressures, or because of religious pressures not because they are not trans.

I believe that gender dysphoria is with you your entire life whether you transition, detransition, or if you never transition at all… GD is always in the back of our minds.

The New Reality

As LGBT people we woke up to a new reality yesterday morning and if the Republicans keep their promise the federal government will not recognize our gender or marriage. So what are the areas of concern for us?

Transgender advocates fear reversal of civil rights under Trump
Reuters
By Daniel Trotta
November 9, 2016

Transgender advocates vowed on Wednesday to resist any effort to reverse or slow down an expansion of transgender rights made under President Barack Obama, fearing a rollback of his directives once Donald Trump succeeds him in the White House.

During his eight years in the Oval Office, Obama championed lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) rights, and Democrat Hillary Clinton had promised to keep fighting for them if she was elected.

Same-sex marriage became legal in 2015, shifting the LGBT discussion to the still-unfinished agenda of transgender rights. Obama has issued regulations prohibiting health insurers from denying coverage based on gender identity and directed public schools to allow transgender students to use the public bathrooms of their choice, among other measures.

"We expect that those will disappear," said Rachel B. Tiven, chief executive of Lambda Legal, a leading gay rights group. "Lambda Legal will hold the line when our rights are under attack. We know how to fight the government in the courts."

Trump sent mixed messages on transgender rights during the campaign. But he promised to nominate a conservative justice to fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court and could name an attorney general who may enforce hard-line positions Trump outlined during the campaign.

The Logo website NewNowNext had this to say about our areas of concern,

What A Trump Presidency Means For The LGBT Community
Spoilers: It ain't good.
By  Dan Avery
November 9, 2016

1. Marriage Equality
It’s hard to know how Donald Trump will address marriage equality in his presidency: He’s been firmly against it since 2000, when he said “the institution of marriage should be between a man and a woman.”

And in a January appearance on Fox News, he lamented the Supreme Court’s ruling on Obergefell v. Hodges, suggesting he would “be very strong on putting certain judges on the bench that I think maybe could change things.”

2. Anti-LGBT Discrimination
Trump has pledged to sign the First Amendment Defense Act, which protects discrimination on religious grounds and prohibits the government from taking action against anyone who “believes or acts in accordance with a religious belief or moral conviction that marriage is or should be recognized as the union of one man and one woman.”

3. Hate Violence
In his convention speech in Cleveland, Trump called on the specter of the Pulse nightclub shooting, promising, “As your president, I will do everything in my power to protect our LGBTQ citizens from the violence and oppression of a hateful foreign ideology.”

What he’d do against hateful native ideology is another matter. It is doubtful, though, he will encourage stronger hate-crime data collection and laws.

4. Trans Rights
Trump has promised to nominate Supreme Court justices in the model of Antonin Scalia, one of the high court’s most homophobic jurists. With Gavin Grimm’s case coming before the court next year, that doesn’t bode well for the transgender community.

Mike Pence, meanwhile, has also vowed an “immediate” review of executive orders issued by President Obama—including, presumably, his directive to schools to allow students to use facilities matching their gender identity.

5. HIV/AIDS
Trump has not issued a policy statement about addressing HIV/AIDS in America or worldwide. Governor Pence, however, cut AIDS spending in Indiana and slashed the budget of the state Planned Parenthood, the only provider of education and prevention tools in some parts of the state.

And I would add the defunding of Planned Parenthood, in states that have cut their funding, the rate of STDs have increased to epidemic proportions in some areas.

5. Conversion Therapy
The GOP campaign platform has been widely criticized as the most anti-LGBT in the party’s history—among its planks

Mike Pence also supports the debunked efforts to “cure” LGBT people: On his campaign website, he wrote “Resources should be directed toward those institutions which provide assistance to those seeking to change their sexual behavior.”

The future does not look good for us.

So what can we do to prepare for when President-elect Trump is sworn in on January 20?

What to Do If You’re Trans and Live in America Now
Some things you can do before this next administration settles in.
The Mary Sue
By Jessica Lachenal
November 9th, 2016

Right up front: last night was more than heartbreaking. It was earth-shattering.

There’s no gentle way to say it, so here it is: if you’re trans, you can probably expect your world to change–if it hasn’t already. Last night, Trump’s running partner, Mike Pence (who firmly believes that you can electrocute gay children into being straight) promised that this administration would be repealing and rolling back many of the LGBT protections put in place by Obama. While many LGB people have much to fear, I mean it when I say trans people in particular will more than likely be made to suffer at the hands of this administration.

Pence, in delivering this promise, specifically cited bathroom laws, saying (via PinkNews) “the transgender bathroom issue can be resolved with common sense at the local level.” He went on to say, “This is such an example of an administration that seems to have… there’s no area of our lives too small for them to want to regulate, no aspect of our constitution too large for them to ignore.”
[…]
If you can, get your passport. More importantly, get it with your correct gender marker and name. It’s complicated now, but it’s more than likely to become nigh impossible when the full brunt of this upcoming administration kicks in. If you haven’t looked into this at all yet, the National Center for Transgender Equality has a helpful guide that may help.

In short, you need:

• a letter from your physician attesting to the fact that you’re undergoing “medical transition”
• Note that for some physicians, being on Hormone Replacement Therapy is enough to obtain this letter, but it’s not enough for all.
• a court order/decree with proof of your name change (if you went through the court to do this).

In my own experience, the original decree was required, but returned to me as soon as my application was done.

In addition to the above, I’m sorry to also say you also need money. There is absolutely a sense of privilege pervading this process, and obtaining a passport isn’t cheap, but it is one of the few documents that you can hold that will allow you to travel unabated both within and outside the country. Given the changing laws around identification documentation and how driver’s licenses will soon not be enough to travel with (in some states), a passport is essential.

If you receive healthcare through the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare), then you face a risk of losing not just your source of hormones (or other medically-needed drugs), but also your healthcare in general. Trump’s made it clear that he has no love for the ACA, and with a GOP majority Senate and House behind him, chances are we’re going to lose the ACA.

Also in doubt is Medicare, there is no law requiring coverage for us, it is only by CMS ruling which could be overturned.

In addition, if you can change your gender markers with Social Security and Medicare do so now because in the future you might not be able to change them without surgery.

I also wonder about our military personnel who came out what will happen to trans, lesbian, and gay service members who came out under the repeal of Do Not Ask Do Not Tell or the lifting of trans exclusionary policies?

Yes, the outlook is bleak and only time will tell how many of these dire consequences will happen.

If you need to talk to someone her are some hotline phone numbers.

Coroner’s Inquest

For the day our country died.

I am afraid.

I am afraid for myself and my country

I am afraid for the Queer community.

I am afraid for all the gains that we made as a country in the last seventy-five years.

I am afraid for those who are disabled and those who cannot care for themselves.

I am afraid for the environment.

I am afraid for the Supreme Court.

We have just elected a President who is a fascist, who is going to court in a couple of weeks to answer charges of raping a girl, who has been accused many criminal crimes. And if he is impeached then we have Pence as president and I think he would be even worst than Trump because he is saner and he believes in the Bible before the Constitution.

The only good thing is now the Republicans have to put forth their agenda and we can see if they can run this country because there will be no excuses. It is their presidency and Congress.

Hate

A look at the news and all you see is hate directed at us.

National Organization for Marriage Releases Anti-Transgender Ad
NBC News
By  Noel Gutierrrez-Morfin
November 8, 2016

Though it was passed nearly eight months ago, the shadow of North Carolina's House Bill 2 -- which restricts bathroom access for transgender people -- looms large over the Tar Heel State's governor's race.

The National Organization for Marriage (NOM), a notoriously anti-LGBTQ group, released a new video attacking Democratic gubernatorial candidate Roy Cooper, claiming that his stance on bathroom access for transgender people would allow sexual predators to target their victims, including children, with ease.

When you stir up hate it has no bounds

Cookeville transgender veteran's truck painted 'Trump,' lit on fire
The Tennessean
By Ariana Sawyer
November 7, 2016

A transgender woman's truck was spray painted with the words "Trump" and torched in her driveway as she and her 3-year-old son were inside their Cookeville home early Saturday morning.

The victim said police told her Monday morning that they are investigating the incident as a hate crime.

A spokesperson with the Putnam County Sheriff's Office confirmed they received a report of the burned and painted truck early Saturday morning and are investigating. But the office did not return a message about whether they are investigating the incident as a hate crime.
[…]
Elle said she would like to ask the person or people who committed the crime why they did it.

"I’m just trying to live my life," she said. "I wouldn’t hurt anyone."

Then we have…

Family seeks justice for transgender woman killed in southside shooting
NBC 12
By Jasmine Turner
November 7th 2016

RICHMOND, VA (WWBT) -
Family and friends are seeking justice while they remember the life of Noony Norwood. Norwood was born with the name William, but known as Ms. Noony Norwood.

"William grew into Ms. Noony Norwood and was accepted," said Janet Wright, Noony's aunt.

Just days after her 30th birthday, Norwood was shot in the 2700 block of Hull Street, and died in the hospital the next day.

"She was a wonderful person, and they took somebody great from us, seriously," she said.

While Wright and Norwood were not related by blood, Wright says they may as well have been, as they were a part of a close knit community.

"I just want people to know that, that was a beautiful person truly, would give you anything," explained Wright."Would help anybody without even a second thought."

For Zakia McKensey founder of the Nationz Foundation, Norwood's death hits hard. She also considers her family, guiding her through her journey as a transgender woman.

Then there is,

Man sentenced to life in prison for 2014 killing of transgender woman
Naples Daily News
By Brett Murphy
November 7, 2016

Terry Brady will spend the rest of his life in prison for killing a transgender woman and then setting her on fire.

Lee County Circuit Judge Frank Porter gave the sentence Monday after hearing Brady's testimony and denying another appeal from the defense lawyers.

"There was no one piece," Porter told Brady in court. "There were many pieces of evidence that came together."

In September a jury convicted Brady, 47, on a second-degree murder charge for the June 2014 slaying of Yaz'min Shancez, 31.

As Elle said “I’m just trying to live my life" that is all we all want… to live our lives.

End the hate.

Diversity

Your thoughts about diversity says something about you. How open are you to affirmative actions? Do you believe that your employment should depend upon how well you can do your job and not on your race, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, or any other protected class?

Don’t Like Diversity? Then You Probably Love Trump
DiversityInc
By Kaitlyn D’Onofrio
Published June 3, 2016

A new Pew Research Center study found a correlation that links negative feelings regarding diversity as well as Islamophobia to “warm feelings” toward Trump. The survey, which polled Republican and Republican-leaning voters, also found that lower levels of education are linked with support for the Republican candidate.

60 percent of respondents who believe the “growing number of newcomers from other countries threatens U.S. values” have warm feelings toward Trump — of which 42 percent have very warm feelings toward him. Of those surveyed overall, 77 percent said they agree that the newcomers threaten American values.

In contrast, of those who believe newcomers “[strengthen] U.S. society,” only 30 percent have warm feelings toward the GOP candidate — compared to 55 percent who have cold feelings.

The study also found that Republicans with positive feelings on Trump are more likely to have violent misconceptions regarding Islam. The majority of those surveyed — 77 percent — believe the Islamic religion “is more likely than others to encourage violence”; of those respondents, 56 percent have warm feelings toward Trump, with 38 percent reporting very warm feelings.
[…]
Overall, those who support Trump tend to be less supportive of diversity. The survey asked if having the majority of the country being Black, Asian and Latino — which the Census predicts will be the case over the next three decades — is “bad for the country” or “good/neither good nor bad for the country.” For respondents who said it’s bad, nearly 50 percent report very warm feelings for Trump, with an additional 16 percent saying they have warm feelings.

The article does say that these traits are a generalization, but I do think that they have a grain of salt behind them.

When I was in grad school we had a discussion on diversity and I said that… Diversity is what made our country great.

If you look at any other country in the world they all lack diversity. Here in the U.S. we tried a grand experiment (after we wiped out the indigenous peoples), all the countries around the world you were born, grew up, married people usually within 50 miles of where you were born, and your religion was probably the same as everyone else in your community. Your whole life revolved around your family and community.

But here in the U.S. we are a nation of immigrants the person you married might be from an entire different country than where you were born. This has a major effect on the gene pool, we are no longer inbreeding, and we no longer had one culture but were multicultural. We have a variety of ideas; we didn’t do things the way they have been always done. We are healthier, smarter and willing to try new things

We are a nation that broke the mold.

I related it to what happened at IBM when you have a monoculture. IBM was a WASP company and they all had the same look… white male, flattop haircut, blue suit, white shirt with a blue tie. When along came two hippies with an idea of a desk top size computer they laughed at the idea, everyone knew that mainframes were the way to go.

An employee came forward and said that she was going transition and become a woman they wanted no part of it.

When you have diversity workforce you have diversity in the ideas. Different cultures, race, religions, sex, sexual orientation, and gender identity sitting at the table you have diversity of ideas. We all look at problems differently because of our backgrounds.

When you have no diversity you have group thought. When you have angry WASP as your voter based you are going to have group think… throw out the immigrants… ban the gays… hate for POC… a