California Governor Brown Signs Trans Bills Into Law

Yesterday was a historic day for transpeople in the state of California as Gov. Jerry Brown (D) signed AB 887, the Gender Nondiscrimination Act and AB 433 the Vital Statistics Modernization Act into law.

For those of you in California who weren't focused on what was happening in Sacramento, here's what those two bills do and what they do to help a transbrother and transsister out.

• The Gender Nondiscrimination Act (AB 887) takes existing protections based on gender and spells out "gender identity and expression" as their own protected categories in our nondiscrimination laws. By making these protections explicit, people will more clearly understand California's nondiscrimination laws, which should increase the likelihood that employers, schools, housing authorities, and other institutions will work to prevent discrimination and/or respond more quickly at the first indications of discrimination.

• The Vital Statistics Modernization Act (AB 433) will alleviate the confusion, anxiety and even danger that transgender people face when we have identity documents that do not reflect who we are. The bill will streamline current law and clarify that eligible petitioners living or born in California can submit gender change petitions in the State of California. The Vital Statistics Modernization Act conforms California's standards to the standards set by the United States Department of State for gender changes on passports, and it makes common-sense changes to the law that ensure the process is simple for qualified petitioners to navigate.

In a nutshell,  The Gender Nondiscrimination Act according to the San Francisco based Transgender Law Center makes 'gender identity and expression' its own protected rights category at work, at school, in housing, in public accommodations and in other settings.

AB 433, the Vital Statistics Modernization Act, makes it easier for transgender people to get a court-ordered gender change and updated birth certificate.

Very happy for you peeps in California, and hope that those laws that you enjoy get replicated elsewhere

Amber Yust Case Settled

The Transgender Law Center announced yesterday that Amber Yust has settled her privacy and civil rights lawsuit filed against the California DMV and the employee who precipitated it.

In October 2010, Thomas DeMartini, a San Francisco area DMV employee who had a known history of denying equal service to transgender customers, retained Yust's personal information through his employment at the DMV.   He then used the information to send her materials condemning her transgender status, and calling for homosexuals to be "put to death."

DeMartini was suspended for his action, and Yust through her attorneys Chris Dolan and the Transgender Law Center, filed a lawsuit in December 2010 against the DMV, alleging violating of her rights under the California Information Practices Act and Unruh Civil Rights Act.  Yust brought similar claims against the DMV employee, who voluntarily resigned from his position with the DMV shortly after the incident.

The matter was resolved with the State of California for $40,000, and with the former DMV employee for $15,000.  According to the Transgender Law Center press release, as part of the settlement, the DMV agreed to work with the Transgender Law Center in an effort to incorporate transgender sensitivity into its ongoing employee training. 

Chris Dolan said, "this suit affirms the right of all people to equal access to government services, regardless of their orientation or decision to make a transition to live life as their full and complete self.  In the big picture, this suit promotes the privacy rights of all Californians by ensuring that confidential information retained by our government stays confidential."

Kristina Wertz, legal director of the Transgender Law Center said "All Californians have the right to do something as simple as going to the DMV without fear of harassment and threats of violence. What happened to Amber reminds us that for transgender people, our state's promise of equal treatment is often unfulfilled. The case serves as a reminder to all businesses that nobody should be treated differently simply because of who they are."

Amen, and thanks for the wonderful work.

Black Trans History: Lucy Hicks Anderson

One of TransGriot's ongoing missions is to search out, find and post nuggets of our African American trans history.  I discovered this one courtesy of Black Past.org and  BlackAmericaWeb

While living in Kentucky I'd heard multiple stories about James 'Sweet Evening Breeze' Herndon from Dawn since she was from Lexington where 'Sweet Evening Breeze' is a legendary presence in the TBLG community there.  But they may also need to start talking about Lucy Hicks Anderson, who was born in Waddy, KY  where we used to get gas on our I-64 runs between Louisville and Lexington.

Lucy Hicks Anderson was born in 1886 in Waddy as Tobias Lawson.   When Lawson entered school she insisted on wearing dresses to school and began calling herself Lucy.  Since the transgender definition hadn't been coined at that time to diagnose what was going on in her life, her mother took her to a physician who advised her to raise young Lucy as a girl.

Lucy left school at age fifteen to begin doing domestic work and left Kentucky in her twenties to move west.   She settled in Pecos, TX and began working at a hotel for a decade until she married Clarence Hicks in 1920 in Silver City, NM and moved west with him to Oxnard, California.  She divorced him in 1929.   

While in Oxnard she continued to do domestic work but was also saving her money she earned from that job.  She eventually purchased some property near the center of town and later operated a brothel.   She also got married again in 1944 to Reuben Anderson, a soldier who was stationed at Long Island's Mitchel Field.  


It was the second marriage that brought the legal trouble into her life.   When it was discovered that Lucy had been born biologically male, the Ventura County district attorney decided to prosecute her for perjury. He asserted that Anderson committed perjury when she signed the marraige license application and swore that there were 'no legal objections' to the marriage.

Of course Lucy had a dissenting opinion. "I defy any doctor in the world to prove that I am not a woman,” Anderson told reporters in the midst of her perjury trial. “I have lived, dressed, acted just what I am, a woman.”   The jury convicted her of the perjury charge, but the judge sentenced her to ten years probation rather than send her to prison. 

However, Lucy's legal troubles weren't over.  Since she'd received allotment checks as the wife of a US Army soldier, the feds prosecuted her and Reuben Anderson for fraud in 1946.  They were both found guilty and sent to prison . 

After serving her time, she tried to return to her life in Oxnard but  the police commissioner threatened her with prosecution if she returned, so she moved to Los Angeles where lived out the remainder of her life until she passed away in 1954.

Paulina Ibarra Case Update

I posted last year about the arrest of Jesus Catalan, who was a person of interest in the August 2009 killing of 24 year old transwoman Paulina Ibarra in Los Angeles.   Turns out there has been some resolution in this case as well.  


In a plea agreement, Catalan recently plead guilty in downtown LA's Superior Court to involuntary manslaughter in the Ibarra case and will receive 12 years in prison for it.  He will be eligible for parole in 10 years.       

That sentence may seem light, but as Karen Ocamb reported in her LBGT POV blog post on the case.

LAPD Lt. Wes Burhmester explained while noting that he could not speak for the prosecutor in the case, the reason for the plea instead of pursuing a murder charge was because the District Attorney must look at being able to prove – beyond a reasonable doubt – to a jury of 12 people that Catalan deserved to be convicted of murder. However, since Catalan had apparently been injured during a struggle with Ibarra, that Ibarra and Catalan knew each other and she was not killed during the course of a felony (like robbery), it would have very hard to prove.

Unfortunately, sometimes that's the way it goes on some of these cases.   You've got to have the evidence to convince a jury and make the charge stick. 

It's probably not a satisfying conclusion for the Ibarra family and all who loved Paulina, but in this instance the person who committed the crime is at least getting some jail time instead of walking the strees as a free man.

Judge Vicky Sworn In!

January 4, 2011 was a historic day for trans kind as well.   Victoria Kolakowski was sworn in as the first elected trans trial court judge in the nation.   She will serve the people of Alameda County in her new position.

The historic nature of the occasion for the people lucky enough to be gathered there at the Oakland Asian Cultural Center wasn't lost on the audience.  The swearing in ceremony included three standing ovations during the event as reported by the dot429 blog.


Underneath her trial robe was a butterfly pin given to her by Sylvia Guerrero, the mother of slain transteen Gwen Araujo, who was tragically murdered at the hands of transphobes in Alameda County eight years ago.

Here's hoping that Judge Kolakowski is the first of a wave of future trans judges, councilmembers, DA's, state reps, state senators and eventually congressmembers. across our nation.

Kamala Harris Becomes California AG

After a tough campaign in which she was targeted for defeat by none other than Turd Blossom himself and narrowly won, Kamala D. Harris had the last laugh as she took the oath of office as California's Attorney General on Monday.

Harris was sworn in front of a star studded crowd that included incoming Lt. Governor Gavin Newsom, Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Sacramento mayor Kevin Johnson, the California legislative Black Caucus and California senator Mark Leno (D-San Francisco).    

The daughter of an Indian cancer researcher mother and a Stanford University economics professor father from Jamaica made history with the win by becoming the first woman, the first African-American and the first South Asian to become California's Attorney General.

In her speech she not only called herself a daughter of Brown v. Board of Education, she talked about Chief Justice Earl Warren.

Like Harris, he started his career in the Alameda County Prosecutor's office, later became California AG and eventually ended up on the Supreme Court as its Chief Justice in 1953.

The Warren Court from 1953-1969 produced the grioundbreaking legal decisions that expanded civil rights and civil liberties to the disgust of conservatives.  

"It's often said that a good prosecutor wins convictions. But a great prosecutor has convictions. Chief Justice Warren put it this way: "Everything I did in my life that was worthwhile, I caught hell for."

So to my fellow Californians, I say: In the coming four years, and in the continuing work of the Attorney General's office, we are going to do whatever it takes -- and catch hell if necessary -- in the cause of protecting and defending the lives and livelihoods of all Californians, by moving beyond the status quo."

The former San Francisco DA is off to a good start in the catching hell department.    Many law enforcement organizations in the state opposed her election, and the conservafools in California already hate Harris for stating during the campaign she wasn't going to defend Prop 8 and her opposition to the death penalty. 

She made it clear in her inauguration speech that she wanted to be not only 'tough on crime', but 'smart on crime' as well.    Unlike the conservalie that's being spread, Harris would not only prosecute violent criminals, but also wants to use an approach she pioneered as the San Francisco DA to focus on job training, drug rehabilitation and education in order to decrease recidivism rates and eliminate the overcrowding of expensive prisons.

“We have accepted a fundamental misdiagnosis of the problem. We treat crime as a monolith with a one size fits all solution instead of recognizing that our approach in the overwhelming majority of non-violent offenders is failing badly.”    

Conservatives also fear Kamala Harris' rising political star in California and national politics.   They are terrified of the prospect that if the personal friend of President Obama is successful in keeping her campaign promises, she could one day like Chief Justice Earl Warren, the man she's role modeling, become California's next governor, US senator, a Supreme Court Justice or the Democratic nominee for president in 2016 and beyond.   

And it would be a great benefit to California and the nation if she did.

Congrats Madame Attorney General.