Monday, October 08, 2018

Still Concerned About Massachusetts Question 3

As the folks in the Bay State are aware of, the rights of trans folks are on the November 6 ballot no thanks to the transphobic bigots behind the No on 3 team.

Image result for Nicole trans child Massachusetts
Question 3 puts on the ballot the just passed in 2016 law that extended public accommodations protections to Massachusetts transgender people.  It also prohibited discrimination against the Mass transgender community.

I was even more concerned when I saw the results of a June 14, 2018 that showed only 49% of the respondents in a Suffolk University poll would vote to keep the trans rights law vs 37% of the respondents that would vote to repeal it with 14% undecided about which way they would vote.



The No on 3 haters are trying to play the tired 'bathroom predator' attacks along with the race card by showing in their attack commercial a white woman going into a locker room after a burly male attacker hides out in there.

There has been a more recent poll (September 13-17) conducted by Suffolk University that shows the YES vote up to 73% while the NO vote is down to 17.4%.   The number of undecided voters is also down to 9.2%,

While the poll numbers look good, the only poll that counts is on November 6.    Massachusetts trans folks and the national trans community at large still have a reason to be concerned about it.

A repeal of Massachusetts law would open the floodgates on a wave of NC style anti-trans bills or anti-trans referenda across the US at a time when the SCOTUS with the addition of Kavanaugh on it is stacked with a conservative slant,   

This election is a must win for us, and it's why I'm urging Massachusetts peeps to vote YES on 3 

My friend Ben Power, who runs the Massachusetts based Sexual Minorities Archive, and has been an activist for several decades, says it best:

“There’s no reason why as Americans trans people shouldn’t have 100% equal rights. To have them possibly taken away is an outrage, and that option being on the ballot is crazy. How and why does the majority get to vote on the rights of a minority? If these rights are repealed, it would be another attack on the transgender community that will lead possibly to more calls to suicide hotlines, more harassment and hate crimes, more ugliness. It would be a black eye on the state’s image. I’m concerned about the welfare of my own friends. There’s only so much harassment and cruelty someone can take before they get very disheartened. We need to totally and unapologetically hold onto our rights here.”

Massachusetts trans kids, their trans elders and the people who unconditionally love us will thank you for helping them do precisely that with a YES vote.

No comments:

Post a Comment