SD House Fails To Override HB 1008

If you thought the drama over HB 1008 was over when Gov. Dennis Daugaard (R) vetoed the bill Tuesday, well it wasn't. 

Never underestimate the eager determination of Republicans and the outside groups pushing the unjust bills to oppress a downtrodden group.  They've made it clear that oppressing trans people is on the legislative agenda for their party in 2016. 

One of the reasons the anti-trans hate groups like the Liberty Counsel and the Alliance Defending Freedom chose South Dakota for this fight is because the Republicans in the Mount Rushmore State have had decades long supermajorities in both houses.  They have controlled the 70 member South Dakota House since 1976, and the 35 member South Dakota Senate since 1996.

The Republican controlled House attempted to jump start the process today of overriding the governor's veto.  They needed to get two-thirds of the House members to vote for the override resolution, and then do the same in the senate in order to successfully override Gov. Daugaard's veto and make HB 1008 law.

The vote to override in the SD House went 36-29 with five abstentions, which means it failed to get the necessary two-thirds support. to send it to the senate and turn this unjust bill attacking the humanity of SD trans kids into an unjust law.

Translation: HB 1008 is DEAD!

They failed thanks to the determined efforts of South Dakota based trans people, advocates at the local, state and national level and their allies. 

But there is still one more anti-trans bill, HB 1112 still percolating in the South Dakota legislature we have to keep our eyes on that is attacking our trans kids.

I hope the South Dakota legislature will see the wisdom of not attacking the humanity of trans kids and let that unjust bill suffer the same fate.

 

SBC Trans Hatefest Starts In Louisville Today

In a few hours the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary will host a hatefest conference in which they will arrogantly spend three days in trans-free rooms coming up with new ways to spin scripture to attack the trans community.

Can't say I didn't see this coming.  When they lost on marriage, they were going to have to come up with a new enemy to attack and organize their faith based minions around, and it is now us.

The Southern Baptist denomination at their June 2014 conference in Baltimore voted to hate on trans people and to officially put themselves on the wrong side of the trans human rights movement just as they did over a century and a half ago on slavery and Jim Crow segregation.   

They can meet if they wish, but the bottom line is and will always be that we trans people and our allies will not allow ANY religious denomination to attempt to turn the non-debatable existence of trans people into a theological issue.

And we damned sure are resisting it with every fiber of our beings.

Hope Louisville is planning a special welcome for you and the rest of Satan's Helpers.

The 40th And Last MichFest

The 40th and last Michigan Womyn's Music Festival starts today and runs in the Hart, MI area until August 9.   After 40 years, it is being shut down by its founder, longtime TERF oppressor Lisa Vogel with rivers of white womyn tears being shed over its self inflicted demise.

People have asked me as a longtime critic of the Trans Exterminationalist (Exclusionary) Radical Feminists and MichFest in general how do I feel about that.

As a trans woman targeted by people indoctrinated on '''The Land' who leave after the Hate On Trans Womyn Convening to take that transphobia they honed there into the real world, all I have to say is this

So long!  See ya!  Adios!  Good riddance to transphobic rubbish! 

Makes me so happy to see it happening after 40 years I feel like popping open that bottle of champagne I was saving for a special occasion and dancing.

But let's be real for a moment.   It didn't have to happen this way.   All Lisa Vogel and MichFest had to do was evolve.  They hypocritically let trans men in the gates, but refused to do so for trans women, and they paid the price for their lack of inclusive vision. 

Women who believed that ALL women should be on The Land tried and failed to get that policy changed, and eventually stopped coming.  Many artists because of the blatant transphobia like the Indigo Girls, Nona Hendryx and Lea DeLaria stopped coming or refused to play MichFest.

Through it all, Vogel denied there was a trans feminine exclusion policy and obstinately clung to those transphobic disco era ways like a wino clutching her last bottle of MD20/20.

So when you womyn-born-womyn are crying those rivers of vanillacentric privileged tears and looking for somebody to blame for your little anti-trans hate party shutting down forever in a few days, look in the mirror first, and then at Lisa Vogel. .   .  

Y'all have fun being stuck in the 70's for the last time on The Land.

Unjust Florida HB 583 Is Dead!

While I was at BTAC, the Florida legislative session ended.   What that means is that is filed bills didn't pass either chamber and make it to the governor's desk to become law, they are dead for this session.

I'm doing the happy dance because the end of Florida's legislative session means the unjust HB 583 filed by transphobic GOP legislator Frank Artiles (R-Miami) is dead for 2015!

The unjust bill that sought to  criminalize trans people's lives and its senate counterpart didn't clear either chamber before the end of the Florida legislative session on April 30.   I and the trans people planning to visit Florida in the near or distant future are thankful we don't have to worry about a nouveau Jim Crow law forcing us to show our papers to pee or risk jail time to do so.

It's probably a huge relief to the just moved to Florida Southern Comfort Conference and its board, who were strangely silent as the human rights of transpeople in the Sunshine State were under attack by an unjust anti-trans bill that could have done fatal damage to SCC.

I'm happy for my trans homies and homettes living in Florida that Artiles' attempt to legislate transphobia failed. 

And yeah, Frank Artiles, you can peddle that 'this was a public safety issue' lie all you wish on FOX Noise, but let's be real, you are a vanillacentric privileged trans oppressor who gleefully filed this bill to attack and dehumanize trans Floridians because you were pissed Miami-Dade was doing the right thing for its trans citizens and protecting them from people who wish to discriminate against them like you.

And I hope the trans community and their allies punish you at the polls for being a trans oppressor.

Great job Florida trans community being agents of your own trans liberation and doing what it took to kill that unjust bill along with your allies.
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Conservative Party Senators Mess With C-279 In Committee

Ever since C-279 passed with support of all the major Canadian political parties in the House of Commons in March 2013, trans people in the Great White North were cautiously optimistic that they would finally reach their political Holy Grail of having federal human rights protection.

C-279 simply amends the Canadian Human Rights Act and the Canadian Criminal Code to add gender identity as a protected class, and our Canadian trans cousins had good reason to be optimistic.

Since 2012, six provinces have followed the Northwest Territories 2004 lead and passed human rights protection for their trans citizens.   Ontario, Manitoba and Nova Scotia all did so that year, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland and Labrador followed in 2013, and Saskatchewan in 2014

But one of the notable House of Common NO votes back in 2013 was Prime Minister Stephen Harper, with now Liberal leader Justin Trudeau not voting on it at all.

That's probably one of the reasons why the Conservative Party when it got to the Senate that they dominated, started acting like their south of the border Republican cousins and fracking with C-279 by bringing up the discredited bathroom predator lie. 

It also didn't help that the TERF's Canadian Division, AKA the REAL Women of Canada also started sticking their transphobic noses in the Conservative effort to halt passage of C-279.  

C-279 still continued to advance, passing first and second reading stage votes and getting successfully voted out of the Senate Standing Committee on Human Rights on June 10, 2013 chaired by Liberal Sen. Mobina Jaffer.

But on the cusp of a major human rights victory, the Conservatives went into full trans oppressor mode during the third reading stage that occurred just before the Canadian Senate went into its summer 2013 recess.   What was more disgusting that it was lesbian Tory Senator Nancy Ruth leading the charge. 

After the Conservative senate leadership ran out the clock and refused to call for that Third Reading vote, that was followed by Prime Minister Harper proroguing parliament in September, which forced C-279 to start from scratch in the Senate legislative process because it was a private member's bill.

Other more ominous signs were Sen Jaffer expressing her concerns during that summer 2013 recess the bill wouldn't pass, and Liberal Senator Grant Mitchell stating what was blatantly obvious to the TransGriot, our trans cousins and the world by calling out the Conservatives for stalling C-279.

When the Senate returned for business after Thanksgiving in October, instead of C-279 going through Sen Jaffer's committee, it was sent after passing another Second Reading vote to the Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs chaired by Conservative senator Bob Rumciman. 

It also has transphobic Tory senator and longtime C-279 hater Neil Plett as a member.

Fortunately Sen. Jaffer is a member of that committee along with Senator Mitchell, but they were outnumbered   On Thursday the Conservative dominated committee passed Plett introduced amendments by a 6-4 margin to exempt C-279 from applying to public spaces including bathrooms and locker rooms.

The negative reaction to that from Canadian trans people and our allies was swift.

The federal NDP  released a statement criticizing what they characterize as the Senate’s attempt to block the bill from passing. “The Senate’s attempt to obstruct this bill that would finally give transgender Canadians the protection and equal status they deserve is reprehensible,” said Randall Garrison, the NDP's LGBT critic and sponsor of C-279, in the statement.

“Human rights are not conditional,” said Helen Kennedy of Egale Canada Human Rights Trust. “The human rights of transgender people must be protected in all spaces including public bathrooms and locker rooms. The amendment to Bill C-279 fuels discrimination against transgender individuals by making it seem like people have something to fear by sharing a bathroom with a transgender person, which of course they don’t.”

“As a transgender person I have been waiting a long time for federal human rights protections,” said Amanda Ryan of Gender Mosaic. “Bathrooms are dangerous for me. I fear what people will do to me if they realize I am transgender. Bill C-279 was meant to protect me from hate crimes, but in amending it, the Senate is putting me at risk. It will force me to use the men’s bathroom, and a transgender woman in the men’s room is a recipe for violence.”

“We appealed to all Senators to support Bill C-279 without any amendments,” said Alex Neve, Secretary-General of Amnesty International Canada. “The original Bill is what was needed. If Senators passed the bill in Committee with no amendments, we would be well on our way to having life-saving human rights protections in place in a matter of weeks.”

“We believe that vulnerable minorities are entitled to basic human rights and should have the full protection of the law; this Bill as amended falls short of providing that protection,” said Richard Marceau of The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs.

C-279 is headed toward a third reading vote, and if it passes third reading with the amendments voted down, it would go to Canadian Governor general David Johnston for Royal Assent to become Canadian law.

But if it passes with the amendments, it has to go back to the House of Commons, and with a Canadian federal election looming on October 19, it's highly unlikely it would pass the Conservative dominate chamber before parliament is dissolved.

And it's sad that it has come to this for a sorely needed human rights bill.  

But the C-279 fight just reinforces what I have been saying for months in our below the 49th Parallel trans human rights struggle.   Thee most dangerous bigot is the one with the power to pass legislation.

You also can't get progressive laws passed out of a conservative legislative body.

Hiding From Transphobic Bigotry Won't Make It Go Away

I got involved in a discussion today on a friend's Facebook page about the transphobic bigotry Yanel Valenzuela was exposed to at a California LA Fitness location back in October


When one of the participants in that FB discussion stated that these type of incidents are why transwomen who pass go stealth, I responded that this is exactly why transpeople need to be out and proud about who they are.

Being in stealth doesn't help the trans community.  It only helps the individual that is in stealth.

Hiding from the transphobic bigotry and hate doesn't and will never make it go away.  The only thing that will make it go away is increased visibility of trans people, increased education about our lives and the issues we face, and getting laws passed to protect our human rights.

I say that because light skinned people in the African-American community that tried to erase their connections to their Black heritage to acquire pseudo White privilege saw it all come crashing down once their Black heritage was discovered.    

The salient point I'm making here is that you cannot fight for your human rights in hiding.   We have tried that in the trans community at the behest of the medical gatekeepers for the first 30 years post Christine Jorgensen's arrival from Denmark 60 years ago.   It didn't work then and it won't work now.

And yes, the Religious Right is now coming for us, and we better be tough minded enough to stand up to them and punch them in the nose when necessary, not cowering in the shadows hoping they'll go away because they won't.   . 

It's no accident that since more transpeople have come out, are openly living their lives and are being ambassadors for our community, we have made tremendous trans human rights progress. 

But our trans human rights job is not yet complete. We still have much work left to do to eradicate anti-trans bigotry and hatred.   The journey to full acceptance of our community with codified human rights is not done and we have many miles to go before it is finished.  
  

Hope You Cali Peeps Are Coming Up With A Game Plan In Case The Repeal AB 1266 Referendum Gets Enough Signatures

As you read this post, the signatures that were collected in the effort by the haters to put a Repeal AB 1266 initiative on the ballot in the 2014 election cycle are being verified and counted.

So what is AB 1266?   It's the School Success And Opportunity Act, the bill passed by the California Assembly and signed into law by California Governor Jerry Brown (D) that restates the obligation of California schools to allow transgender students to participate in all school activities, programs, and facilities. 

It also reaffirms to school districts, teachers, parents and students that California’s nondiscrimination law not only covers trans students, it requires public schools to respect a transgender student’s identity in all school programs, activities, and facilities. This bill will simply ensure that transgender boys and girls are treated just like all other boys and girls so that they can participate fully in school activities and graduate on time.

But the haters, including the Family Research Council, the Pacific Justice Institute and the California Republican Party despise AB 1266 and have been organizing to kill it by any means necessary including lies, disinformation, demonizing and bullying trans students.

For the moment the news is encouraging from the Left Coast.  As the referendum against AB 1266 proceeds to random sample, the proponents operating under the Orwellian name of Privacy For All Students, would need 92.1% validity to qualify the measure for the November 2014 ballot. So far the smaller California counties that have submitted their full validation have had 72.49% validity rates.

But my inquiring mind is asking this question.  Which of those 58 California counties were the ones that failed to make the validity threshold?  Did they include any of the more populous California counties like Alameda (Oakland), San Francisco, Los Angeles, Ventura, Orange (Anaheim), San Diego, Contra Costa, Riverside (Palm Springs), San Bernadino, Fresno, Santa Barbara,  Solano, San Mateo, Santa Clara (San Jose), and Sacramento just to name a few?

We trans peeps can't allow ourselves to be tempted to take the tranquilizing drug of complacency in this situation or relax until the California Attorney General's office utters the words, "It failed'.  

We need to be ready to jump into political combat mode if it doesn't. 

I know the San Francisco based Transgender Law Center is monitoring the situation, but what happens if the haters do get enough signatures to trigger a referendum to repeal AB 1266, and are they and our California allies doing enough to plan for what they do if that happens?  
 
I've always been a prepare for the worst case scenario while hoping for and working toward the best case outcome kind of girl, and worst case scenario in this instance would be they get enough signature to trigger the repeal referendum.

So what needs to happen if they do?   First order of political business is this AB 1266 repeal referendum must be spectacularly defeated and die a politically painful death. We must send the message that their bathroom demonization tactics and lies to oppose trans rights, which is the only thing they have left to oppose trans human rights laws, will not succeed at the ballot box.

At that moment that the Repeal AB 1266 referendum is approved this becomes not just a California issue, but a political and movement one for the entire US trans community we must win.   It's also an issue that will require a national level response to it. 

We know for a fact that once they get the word, the haters will be mobilizing if they aren't already to pour every dollar and fly every conservative hate activist and field organizer west to California. 

Cali Gay, Inc peeps, they won't all be white either.   To give the overwhelmingly white conservafools and money behind the effort a veneer of diversity, they will find useful fools like Jesse Lee Peterson down in LA and other non-white sellouts to shill for this Kill AB 1266 effort.   They will find cookie-chomping knee-grow pastors willing to sell out the Black and Latino trans community for their media face time and 40 pieces of silver.

The haters are definitely going to be bankrolled by out of state interests and flying in conservafool carpetbaggers to help them, so y'all better be prepared to counter that.  You need to be prepared to do the same simply because you will be justified in doing so to defend AB 1266.

You should not hesitate in IMMEDIATELY asking for national and INTERNATIONAL help and money from the trans community and our allies.  You should be putting together now your lists of liberal progressive churches, pastors, Hollywood actors, athletes and politicians, and double checking to make sure they are ethnically and regionally diverse.  

From the millisecond the referendum gets cleared by the Cali Attorney General's office you need to pounce on and utterly destroy to the point they are radioactive the bathroom meme and all the other scare tactics the wingers are going to throw at it because it's the only way they can be successful.

You need to find the Cali trans kids like Ashton Lee who fought to get it passed and who benefit from the law.  Give them face time along with cisgender kids and parents willing to rebut the lies of the haters that they are 'doing this for all California children'. 

Make sure your California media buys reach Black, Asian and Latino voters and places besides the LA and San Francisco metro areas. 

Don't be afraid to go for the right wing jugular because you've not only have the moral high ground, you got to be in it to win it.  

Cali transpeople, you need to do your part to help defeat the haters too.  T-bills need to be donated to the coalition when it forms.  If you can't give cash, sweat equity is also needed in the form of volunteers to phone bank, canvass, register voters, staff offices, and Get Out The Vote mobilization on election day to defeat it.   Get informed about AB 1266 and go to war in the comment threads of your local newspapers to counter the lies the haters will be trying to spread.

You must do the little things to win the hearts and minds of undecided voters.  Attention to details like that may help you defeat the hate referendum.

And when you build that diverse intersectional coalition to defeat this repeal effort, in addition to making sure it is properly funded and the money raised is spent wisely, hire some trans peeps in the getting paid positions to help coordinate strategy for this AB 1266 defense effort .  We are the people best qualified to talk about our lives and come up with the necessary talking points to come up with a clear message about us. 

We transpeeps (for a fee) can also tell you what NOT to say either.

It's also personal for us transpeople, too.   I have some other ideas, but they will only be released to the Defend AB 1266 coalition or whatever name they come up for it should that become necessary.

Hopefully you learned your lessons from the failed 2008 Prop 8 efforts, but just in case you forgot them, just wanted to make sure you didn't frack stuff up in this critical effort in 2014 that trans people will need you to win, preferably in a decisive manner should it come to pass.    

Another Reason Why Non Discrimination Laws To Protect Trans People MUST Have Public Accomodations Language In Them

Those of you who have read this blog know that I will go straight the hell off if I hear any hint of a suggestion that in order to pass a non-discrimination law that protects trans people, we trans folks must drop public accommodations language from them.  

Bull feces.  You gay and lesbian peeps didn't drop public accommodations language from the local and state non-discrimination laws that cover sexual orientation only, so not no, but hell no will I even entertain that thought or publicly support a trans rights bill with no public accommodations language.   

If you want to know why I'm so militant about that point, ask the folks in Massachusetts who are honest enough to do so about the problems they are having adding that missing public accommodations language into their no prize winning public accommodations language free trans rights law elements of their community  trumpeted as a win back in 2011.

Hate to say I told you so, but ....

The reason why public accommodations language is a must for any trans human rights law and I'm so insistent upon it was demonstrated once again in this videotape of a November 8 incident outside an ATL Latino bar.

Alissah Brooks was denied entrance because of her trans status, and the manager ignorantly asserting that since it was a private club they had the right to do so. 

FYI, the City of Atlanta's non-discrimination ordinance passed in 2000 and updated by a unanimous vote back in July covers trans people.  But you'll find that out soon enough Don Pollo when y'all either get hauled into municipal court or in front of the Atlanta Human Rights Commission.

In the meantime, this video is evidence why public accommodations language is necessary in non-discrimination laws with this disturbing video taken by Alissah Brooks of Don Pollo personnel engaging in anti-trans discrimination.

LA Fitness Hates On A Transwoman

One of my not so fond memories of one of my frequent non-rev trips to Los Angeles in the late 90's was when I flew out there as soon as my gate shift was over at 9 PM on Wednesday to spend two of my three consecutive off days hanging out with my homegirl Seni.

But unfortunately on that particular trip my flight got delayed due to a cold front passing through the Houston area.  It not only cooled the temps off in the IAH area, it created dense fog that dropped visibility enough to create lengthy ATC delays into and out of IAH because at that time it only had four runways  

By the time we finally took off  to do the 3 plus hour flight to Los Angeles my 12 AM Pacific time arrival in LAX became a 2 AM one.   Me thinking I'd be able to make up that sleep I lost on the trip to the Left Coast was cruelly shattered when Seni woke my peacefully slumbering butt up to accompany her to her nearby LA Fitness gym for a workout.  

I was so pissed off that when I hit the Stairmaster in that near Beverly Hills area location I was stomping my pissivity out on it for 20 minutes before I realized it was set to be much harder than I normally liked and my legs reminded me of it a few minutes later when they cramped up. 

That trip down Moni Memory Lane was generated because of the story that TransGriot reader Jazmine Brockington sent me concerning transwoman Yanel Valenzuela.  

She was allegedly told after she revealed her trans status to an LA Fitness employee in an effort to get workout advice specific to her situation she could no longer use the women's locker room.  

The cis female manager at the Montclair, CA location  (located at 9385 Monte Vista Ave in case anybody in the LA area wants to organize a picket of it)  told a stunned Valenzuela she could no longer use the women's locker room.   The manager was also unmoved when Valenzuela produced her carry letter from her gender therapist and herCalifornia DL with the F in the gender code area. 



“It gave me emotional stress,” Valenzuela told reporters. “I don’t think it was fair... I felt hurt because I don’t understand why she did it. She had no reason. She had no complaints from anyone."

According to news reports in the area LA Fitness is aware of the situation but has no comment   And note to that transphobic cis female manager:  In California trans people are a protected class under the state's anti-discrimination laws.

"I hope this never happens to anybody again because it’s not fair for me to be disrespected in front of clients and members that come here,” Valenzuela said. 

So do I Ms. Valenzuela.  And hope you give Lambda Legal's LA office a call while you're at it. 

And it is because of situations like this why I go straight the hell off when some cis person, especially from the GLB community tries to suggest we pass half-assed trans human rights laws (Massachusetts) that don't have public accommodations language in them. 
 

So SPLC, When Are You Going To Declare The TERF's A Hate Group?

And how many more Black and Latina trans women have to die before you do so? 

How many more transpeople have to suffer from anti-trans discrimination before you step up to the plate and do what you should have done years ago?

How much more hate speech do they have to publish online at RadFem Hub and Gender Trender before you call them on it? 

You have four decades worth of evidence that point out the TERF's are a hate group. Even Stevie Wonder can see they are a hate group.  The trans community who is deleteriously affected by their rabid hate damned sure knows it.  So why haven't you as the FBI's go to watchdog group for keeping an eye on the extremist ones in this country not done your due diligence on trans exterminationalist exclusionary radical feminism?

Your continued inaction and silence on this issue only lends credence to the belief in Trans World that you have a TERF (or TERF's) embedded in your organization that is keeping such a declaration from happening or you simply don't care.

Which statement is true?   Inquiring trans minds and our allies wanna know.

Because SPLC, so far all we're getting from you right now on the subject is this.

And that's unacceptable.

Instigator Of CeCe McDonald Case Sentenced

'Flaherty deserves jail time and a fine for causing bodily injury to CeCe, and the trans community should not rest or let this crap slide until CeCe gets some justice out of this fracked up situation, too instead of the heaping helpings of injustice she's had to deal with.'   TransGriot  December 10, 2012 

This is the closing paragraph of the December 2012 post I wrote concerning CeCe McDonald's attacker Molly Shannon Flaherty in which I asked why were the authorities dragging their feet on the case and why was CeCe the only person doing serious jail time for standing her ground against a racist and transphobic attack aimed at her and her friend and involved a known white supremacist?.

Katrina Rose in her ENBAblog 2.0 post she wrote on December 10, 2012 as well gave us her theory into why the wheels of justice were possibly grinding so slowly in this Land of 10,000 Lakes case.

Anyone interested in wagering any money that the fine upstanding white, non-trans Molly McTransphobe (McRadphlegm, too?) Flaherty is probably a full-time lowlife who has some sort of informant/immunity deal with one or more prosecutorial authorities in the area?  Anyone interested in wagering any money on the possibility of it involving heavy-duty shit of great social and political import (read: victimless crime – probably taking notes on who sells a joint to whom in bars where people like the fine upstanding white, non-trans Molly McTransphobe (McRadphlegm, too?) Flaherty hang out?

Flaherty already had a criminal history and charges pending  from a previous March 2011 arrest before that fateful June 5, 2011 night at the Schooner Tavern.  She and her buddies decided to put the Black gay and transpeople in their place and it resulted in white supremacist Dean Schmitz's death.

The 41 year old Flaherty wasn't even arrested and charged until May 11 of last year, right about the time that loud cries were coming from around the country about the glaring fact the Black trans woman was the only one being charged and railroaded into jail for this incident.   

Flaherty pleaded guilty on January 24 to third-degree assault in Washington County Court and was sentenced Thursday.  That's a felony that carries a maximum five year prison sentence. 

Care to guess how much time she got for assaulting CeCe McDonald?    180 days in jail.  (Damn Kat, you called it.) 

Nope, that's not a typo. The justice Just-us system at work again.  Flaherty got 180 days in jail for a third degree assault she instigated and for smashing a glass in CeCe face that created a cut taking 11 stitches to close  while CeCe is spending 41 months in jail for being BTWW (Black Trans While Walking) and having the audacity to stand her ground and defend herself.