Idaho Governor Signs Trans Oppressive Bills Into Law

The Republican controlled Idaho Legislature hasn't addressed the COVID-19 crisis, but had time to shepherd two bills through their legislature aimed at oppressing trans people.

On the eve of the Transgender Day of Visibility,  Idaho's Gov Brad Little (R) signed two unjust bills designed to oppress trans people in that state.

And consistent with the pattern in other parts of the country when it comes to the anti-trans bills, they used Republican women legislators as the front people to do their transphobic dirty work.

House Bill 500, sponsored by Rep Barbara Ehardt (R) forbids transgender girls from competing in sports against cisgender girls, and applies to all teams at the high school, public college and university level.

It also contains a provision in which if  a high school or college female competitor is suspected of being trans, the school is allowed to conduct a physical genital exam on that person in addition to doing blood and chromosomal testing.

Even the International Olympic Committee (IOC) doesn't go there now after doing something similar since the 1964 Tokyo Games.   The sex tests the IOC administered until 2000 were often inconclusive in addition to being invasive and  dehumanizing.

Then again, since when did the Republican Party at any level of government ever miss an opportunity to gleefully legislate oppressive laws against women, be they cis or transgender?

The other bill Little signed into law. House Bill 509, prevents trans people from changing the gender marker listed on their birth certificates. 

That one is probably headed to court, because in 2018 Idaho lost a court case in which they were ordered to allow Idaho trans people to change the gender marker on their birth certificates.

The Idaho ACLU was quick to condemn Little's actions.

"The ACLU of Idaho condemns Gov Brad Little's decision to sign discriminatory, unconstitutional, and deeply hurtful anti-transgender bills into law. 

"Leaders from the business, faith, medical, education and athletics communities will not forget this decision or what it says about the governor's priorities during a global pandemic," said the ACLU in a statement. "The ACLU will see the governor in court. We encourage all Idahoans to email, call, and tweet Gov. Little to express outrage and disappointment at wasting precious taxpayer resources on blatantly anti-transgender bills at a time when we should be coming together for the health and wellbeing of our people." 

The ACLU encourages Idahoans to email the governor at governor@gov.idaho.gov and call him at 208-334-2100 and tweet him @GovernorLittle to express their disappointment. 

All trans people want to do is be able to compete in sports, and using BS excuses dating back to the Jim Crow sports segregation days repurposed to discriminate against trans feminine athletes will not be tolerated by our community. 

We'll see you in court on both of these unjust bills.

Jacksonville,You Have A Trans Violence Problem

Less than a month after the November 2015 repeal of the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance, Jacksonville was trying to pass the addition of gender identity to their own ERO.

Fresh off their shady victory in Houston, Republican advocates and conservative fundamentalists went to work using the same reprehensible playbook to defeat Jacksonville's attempt to add gender identity to their ERO. 

After a month of nonstop anti-trans rhetoric pimped by now disgraced pedophile pastor Kenneth Adkins and the Klan distributing anti-gay flyers mere days after a contentious public forum, Jacksonville's mayor Lenny Curry (R)  then shut down the attempt to pass the ERO in January. 

It was revived and successfully passed in February 2017, but the anti-trans animus stirred up by the Jacksonville hate pastors definitely didn't go away.  The anti-trans animus needlessly stirred up by the hate pastors in their attempt to kill the Jacksonville ERO I assert is one of the reasons that Jacksonville has a trans violence problem.

In 2018 we have had three trans women, Celine Walker, Antasha English and now Cathalina James killed in this city.  A fourth Black trans woman was shot during a domestic dispute but survived. 

The animus between the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office and the local trans community doesn't help, either.   The JSO needs to stop being transphobic azzholes and treat the local trans community with dignity and respect. 

When Celine Walker was killed, she was misgendered by the JSO, and the local media followed their lead.   When they got called on it by the local community and GLAAD, they claimed they had a policy that would not allow them to refer to victims as transgender

This blatant lack of respect from JSO is probably a major reason why these cases have remained unsolved so far and feeds into the anti-trans animus initially stirred up in 2015 .

According to local advocates, the trans community is more fearful of the JSO than the killer that is lurking about killing them.    That's a situation that must change if they are to get the help necessary from the Jacksonville trans community that will solve this case.

JSO must become culturally competent to make that happen, because trans folks do live in the city of Jacksonville and Duval County itself.

Jacksonville, it's obvious you have a trans violence problem.   What are you going to do to solve it?

Texas Special Oppression Session Is Over!

Earlier this afternoon  we Texas activists who have been fighting SB 6, SB 3 and other anti-trans hate bills heard the words we've wanted to hear:  Sine Die!

The Special Oppression Session ended when the Texas House adjourned without calling hearings on the unjust Senate passed SB 6 or on Rep. Ron Simmons' HB 46 or HB 50 anti-trans hate bills.   The Texas Senate did so a few hours later .

While the GOP transphobes like Kolkhorst and Patrick were lamenting that development, Texas transgender people and our allies are celebrating this huge win.

Don't mess with Texas trans people.   And don't mess with our Texas trans kids.

The Texas trans community, along with the parents of trans kids, Texas based advocacy orgs, legislators, the Texas business community, Texas progressive pastors and our allies testified, phone banked and did what was necessary to kill these bills.

Will Gov Abbott call another special session and waste $800,000 more of our tax dollars to try to pass SB 6 and other anti-trans hate bills?   Just the discussion of these bills has cost Texas $66 million dollars of convention business as the Texas Republican Party tried to pass anti-trans oppression for their political gain.

While Lt Governor 'Potty Dan' Patrick tried to spin this defeat and claim that 'the people' will demand in the next session to pass the anti-trans hate bills, I think fair minded Texans have already resoundingly spoken in the 2015 and 2017 regular and special sessions about how we feel about these attempts to legislate anti-trans oppression.

And if Patrick tries to pass anti-trans oppression in Texas in the next session, we'll be there in force to combat it.

I hope those same fair minded Texans will do to Sen. Lois Kolkhorst, Potty Dan Patrick, Gov. Greg Abbott, Rep Ron Simmons, and every Texas senator and representative who either sponsored or supported these bills do what was done to Rep Debbie Riddle (R-Tomball) and Rep. Gilbert Pena (R-Pasadena) in 2016:   Make them ex-legislators.

Sen. Eddie Lucio, Jr.  (DINO-Brownsville) is also high on my make him an ex legislator list.

So what's next?   I predict the Texas GOP will try to oust Joe Straus as speaker before they attempt to call another Special Oppression Session.   He is one of the major reasons Texas didn't go down the disastrous road North Carolina did..

But in the interim, the Texas Trans Forces of Light have once again defeated the Texas GOP Forces of Trans Oppression.   We can exhale and celebrate our win today, but we must prefare for and be ready for the next clash with the conservative forces attempting to oppress us.
     

TX Women Leaders Rally in Austin

The clock is ticking toward the end of the Special Oppression Session on August 18, and while we have SB 3 and the other hate bills hung up in the House, we're still keeping the pressure up on the GOP majority.

I'll be in Houston raising hell at City Council later today, but my heart will be with the group of Texas women leaders countering the big whopper that Lying Lois Kolkhorst told last Thursday at the faux faith based hate rally and make it clear that Texas women oppose this unjust bill.

***

Texas women will stand together against discrimination—and together, we'll urge lawmakers to reject the dangerous proposed bathroom bills in the final two weeks of special session.

Some lawmakers claim this is a woman’s privacy issue. It is not. They claim this is a safety issue. It is not. Law enforcement officials from across the United States and right here in Texas have made clear that this is a solution in search of a problem. The leading sexual assault expert in our state says this bill will not protect women from sexual assault. Now, women are taking the lead. This is not about women’s safety or privacy.

We are mothers. We are business owners and business executives. We are teachers. We are active in our communities, in local government and in our schools. We are faith leaders and actively involved in our respected houses of worship. We are conservatives, liberals and independents. We represent the rich diversity of our state and we reject attempts to divide us and to score political points through fear and misinformation.

RSVP to let us know you can be there—and please spread the word to women in your network who you know oppose discrimination and agree Texas should be open for business to everyone.

If time permits, please plan to visit legislators while you are at the Capitol to express your opposition to the bathroom bill.
***

The Texas Women Leaders rally will take place starting at 11 AM on the south steps of the Texas Capitol, with the rain date location being the Capitol Extension Auditorium in E1.004.

Hope you ATX peeps will give them some love.

Anti-Trans I-1552 Initiative Fails!

Some great news out of Washington state for trans kind and all who treasure human rights.

For the second consecutive year, the Axis of Trans Intolerance has failed to gather enough signatures to put an initiative on the ballot designed to repeal the human rights of the transgender citizens of Washington state!

Last year they tried and failed to get I-1551 on the November 2016 ballot, and the Washington Secretary of State's office announced that the I-1552 campaign cancelled their 3 PM PDT appointment to turn in 259, 622 valid signatures to place their unjust initiative on the ballot.

Had they gotten those signatures and the initiative passed, it would have rolled back state and local protections against gender identity discrimination, required that public schools restrict access to  some facilities based on sex at birth, and allowed lawsuits against school districts over the issue.

Congratulations to all the people in Washington state who made this wonderful day happen with a bipartisan 'Decline to Sign 'campaign

And congrats to my Washington state trans fam for their hard work in getting the back to back wins.

Here's also hoping that the Axis of Trans Intolerance in Washington state finally gets the message that the people of the Evergreen State don't want the transphobic snake oil they're selling.

But somehow, I have the feeling they'l try to oppress the Washington trans community again.

Two More Trans Women Of Color Killed In Ohio And Texas

While I was up in western New York making a little trans history with Janet Mock, the world kept turning, and I stepped off the ground to find out that two of my sisters have been killed.

And once again, it fit the infuriating pattern in these trans murders of both trans women being under age 40, and being trans women of color

The one that really bothers me is the murder of 28 year old Rae Lynn Thomas of Columbus, Ohio.   This one happened mere weeks after the death up I-71 un Cleveland of 26 year old Skye Mockabee and sadly fits one of my mantras that I often repeat when I talk about anti trans bigotry and hatred.

Anti-trans hate thoughts + anti-trans hate speech = anti-trans hate violence and murders.

Thomas was murdered by her mother's transphobic ex boyfriend James Allen  Byrd.   He often hurled anti-trans slurs at Rae Lynn and referred to her as 'the devil'.

Gee, wonder where the 53 year old Byrd heard that description and some of that anti-trans rhetoric?  Pope Francis? Some sellout kneegrow pastor?   The Republican Party?   Right wing media?

Wherever he heard it, it unfortunately resulted in Byrd unfortunately taking his transphobic hate thoughts and hate speech to another level on Wednesday, as he called Thomas 'the devil' one last more time before he shot her twice and killed her.

And once again, the local paper, the Columbus Dispatch, added insult to injury by not only misgendering Rae Lynn, but refuses so far to correct their problematic story.

He was arrested, charged with murder and is being held in the Franklin County Jail on a $2 million bond.   Hope that will be a permanent condition for his when justice is served in this case.

775 miles to the west of me along I-10 in El Paso, we lost another trans woman to senseless anti-trans violence on Monday.

38 year old Erykah Tijerina was found dead in her apartment on Lisbon St.   El Paso County medical examiners have not as yet ruled on the cause of Erykah's death, but El Paso police investigators in the Crimes Against persons unit are quoted as saying there were obvious signs of foul play.

And just as in the Thomas murder, Tijerina was misgendered in the El Paso press.

Her family thinks it was a hate crime and she was targeted for being her unapologetic trans Latina self.  In case you're wondering, no thanks to Diane Hardy-Garcia, the head at the time of the proto organization, the Lesbian Gay Rights Lobby that became Equality Texas.  As the ED of the LGRL she was responsible despite our best efforts, for throwing Texas trans people under the legislative bus in 1999 and 2001,

And nope, still pissed off about what happened in Austin at that time.

As a result of her actions, Texas trans people are not covered under the state's James Byrd Hate Crimes law that eventually passed in the 2001 Texas legislative session.  Translation: Tijerina's death isn't being investigated as a hate crime as a result of that legislative bull feces.

I'll gripe about that legislative travesty another time.  Right now I need to be focused on the fact my fellow Texan's life was tragically cut short earlier this week.

And yeah Dan Patrick, Greg Abbott, Ken Paxton and Texas Republican Party, your anti-trans rhetoric has real world consequences and negative ripple effects in the lives of transgender Texans

As of this writing there has not been an arrest made in Tijerina's murder, and anyone who has information that will lead to the capture and successful prosecution of it is urged to call El paso Crime Stoppers at 915-566- TIPS (8477) or toll free at 877- 566-TIPS.

If you have tips that will lead to the expeditious capture, prosecution and conviction of Tijerina's killer, please call the El Paso Police Department at 951-000-0000, text EPPD and the tip to 847411 or submit an anonymous tip

There will be a vigil hosted by Sun City Pride for Tijerina at The Edge nightclub tonight at 8:30 Pm MDT, with a second vigil being planned for August 21.

Tijerina's family also has a GoFundMe page up to help raise funds to defray the costs of her funeral.

I will be keeping up with the legal developments in both these cases until both the perpetrators of these murders are brought to justice.

Rest in power and peace Rae Lynn and Erykah.

SD Senate Committee Kills HB 1112

Lost in the euphoria over the failed attempt to override Gov. Daugaard's veto of HB 1008 by the GOP controlled South Dakota House was news on the senate side of the capitol building in Pierre that another unjust anti-trans bill has died.

The Senate Education Committee on a 5-2 vote killed HB 1112, which was another attack on our trans kids that would have if passed rescinded the pro-trans participation policy of the South Dakota High School Activities Association (SDHSAA)..

Trans students and allies like the SDHSAA, the ACLU-SD,  and others stood up for the huan rights of trans kids that wee under assault by the Concerned Transphobes Women Of America, the Family heritage Alliance and other assorted haters.

While this unjust bill is dead, the session still is in effect until March 31, so the South Dakota trans community and our allies will have to be vigilant for any attempts to resurrect HB 1112 as an amendment to another bill  or smoke it out of the committee by having it brought to the SD Senate floor by a senate floor vote.

But congrats once again to South Dakota for their so far successful efforts to beat back the attempts to legislate anti-trans bigotry aimed at our trans kids.

Will SD Gov. Dennis Daugaard Be A Human Rights Hero Or Zero Today?

Today South Dakota Governor Dennis Daugaard (R) has a decision to make in regards to the unjust HB 1008 that targets transgender kids in the Mount Rushmore state for oppression.

Today is the deadline for him to act on this unjust bill.  He can either be a human rights hero and veto the bill, or he can go down in history as a human rights oppressor and sign it.   He can also take the coward's way out and decline to sign the bill, which because it is March 1, would become law without his signature.

My money is on him doing the cowardly thing and letting the bill become law without his signature. You know I have zero confidence in any Republican doing the right thing for any marginalized groups when it comes to the human rights of people that aren't conservative white males.

Hope he shocks me, but we'll see what happens today.

TransGriot Update:  Gov Daugaard has VETOED HB 1008

Time To Fight An Unjust Anti-Trans Bill In Tennessee

Well, the latest attempt by conservative Republicans to attack trans kids with unjust laws is about to be launched any day now in the Volunteer State.

Thanks to the Tennessee Transgender Political Coalition for posting the alert so I can signal boost it.

The Tennessee Transgender Political Coalition is disappointed to learn that HB 2414 by Lynn, Matlock, & Lamberth, the Transgender Student Bathroom Harassment Act, has been placed On Notice in the House Education Administration and Planning Subcommittee on Tuesday, March 1.

It is imperative that those who live in Tennessee contact members of the committee and express your opposition to this incredibly dangerous bill. It would expose transgender, gender variant, and gender non conforming students to increased levels of bullying, harassment, and physical assault.

Mark White (R-Memphis), Chair, 615-741-4415, rep.mark.white@capitol.tn.gov,

Harry Brooks (R-Knoxville), 615-741-6879, rep.harry.brooks@capitol.tn.gov,

John DeBerry (D-Memphis), 615-741-2239, rep.john.deberry@capitol.tn.gov,

Kevin Dunlap (D-Rock Island), 615-741-1963, rep.kevin.dunlap@capitol.tn.gov,

Debra Moody (R-Covington), 615-741-3774, rep.debra.moody@capitol.tn.gov,

Eddie Smith (R-Knoxville), 615-741-2031, rep.eddie.smith@capitol.tn.gov,

Dawn White (R-Murfreesboro), 615-741-6849, rep.dawn.white@capitol.tn.gov,

Rick Womick (R-Rockvale), 615-741-2804, rep.richard.womick@capitol.tn.gov,

http://www.capitol.tn.gov/hou…/committees/sub-education.html

As TTPC advises me how those of us outside Tennessee's borders can help them in their fight against HB 2414 I'll pass that info on to you.   I'll also keep tracking this latest unjust bill designed to attack the humanity of our trans kids.
.

Clock Ticking On Unjust HB 1008 Signing By SD Governor

The unjust HB 1008 has been sent to South Dakota Governor Dennis Daugaard's (R) desk for his signature, and he has until March 1 to act on it.

It was passed on a 20-15 vote out of the GOP controlled Senate and 58-10 a month ago in the GOP controlled house, and is now awaiting action from Governor Daugaard.

He can either: (A) veto it, (B) be a bold GOP trans oppressor and sign the unjust bill into law, or (C) take the political coward's way out and let the bill become law without his signature.

I'm expecting option C to happen.  I'm under no illusions that Republicans will do the right thing when it comes to the human rights of groups they don't like and wish to oppress.

The South Dakota trans community and their allies are hoping that their governor will do the right thing and veto the bill, and yesterday showed up in their state capitol of Pierre to demonstrate their opposition to the bill.   Petitions have also popped up with over 80,000 signatures and urging him to not sign the unjust law

Even Wayne Maines, the father of trans teen Nicole Maines who fought a successful protracted legal battle over bathroom access for his trans daughter, urged the governor in an open letter to veto the unjust legislation

“Transgender children across the nation go to school everyday afraid – a survey by the HRC Foundation found that three-quarters of transgender students feel unsafe in school settings. They sit in class and learn about powerful words, like courage, freedom and equality. Words that transgender people know well and dream will one day be true. Words that some of our leaders talk about but have forgotten how to use. If I could meet with you and your fellow governors, I would sit down with you and ask, ‘What are you afraid of?’ These kids just want to go to the bathroom, maybe visit with their friends to discuss their day, to laugh and just be kids. Why does it have to so hard? Their classmates do not care and they are not afraid. It is time to listen, watch and learn from them to understand that being transgender is not a big deal.”

A group of trans students had a closed door meeting with Governor Daugaard yesterday, and the trans community's most well known Republican in Caitlyn Jenner took to Twitter to urge the governor to do the right thing and veto it.

We'll see what happens over the next few days in Pierre if South Dakota decides to continue down the destructive road at the behest of out of state hate groups and their GOP controlled legislature to legislate oppression of trans people.