Motion To Deadname Muhlaysia Booker Denied

Andrew Wilkerson, the transphobic defense attorney for Edward Thomas, tried it. 


Knowing that his client is on videotape beating down Muhlaysia Booker into unconsciousness for $200, and knowing that there are witnesses to that hate crime, he tried injecting transphobia in the mix for the upcoming October 14 trial.

Wilkerson is cynically trying to get the April 12 assault by the 29 year old Thomas characterized as a fight between two men, instead of a man beating up a woman.

The 29 year old Thomas is charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, a second degree felony that if convicted, can get Thomas anywhere from 2 to 20 years in jail.

The attack left the 22 year old Booker with a broken wrist and a concussion.

Fortunately for us trans Texans, Judge Hector Garza (D) saw through this BS attempt to use a cynical variation of the trans panic defense in this trial.

Wilkerson is claiming that recognizing Booker as the female she was will 'prejudice the jury', and tried to have the name on the indictment changed to Booker's deadname.   Prosecuting attorneys argued that indictments can be amended to include aliases, and since Booker had been living as her true self for several years and answered to Muhlaysia, the court should honor that.

"Our position is one of respect," said lead prosecutor Jason Hermus to Judge Garza.

Wilkerson has been a serial transphobe in this case.   He also disrespected and misgendered Booker in a June 7 Facebook post, which led to Judge Garza issuing a gag order for both attorneys.

Judge Garza ruled that when this case goes to trial, the jury will hear the name Muhlaysia Booker, not her deadname.

Remember that trans Dallas when Judge Garza runs for reelection for the 195th Judicial District Court next March.

Kansas Trans People Suing State For Right To Change Birth Certificates

Kansas is one of three states  (Ohio and Tennessee are the other two) that obstinately refuse to allow trans people born there  to change their birth certificates under any circumstances. 

It's BS, so four Kansas trans residents filed a federal lawsuit on October 15 to change that unjust policy.   I was happy to discover but not surprised to find out that two of the four people suing are my Kansas based BTAC fam in Luc Bensimon and Nyla Foster

The lawsuit argues that the Kansas policy violates the due process and equal protection clauses of the Constitution.   It's also arguing that the policy violates the plaintiff's free speech rights.

The other plaintiffs in the suit are a transperson person identified as C.K., Jessica Hicklin, and the Kansas Statewide Education project (K-STEP)

The defendants are Jeff Anderson, secretary of the Kansas Department of Health and Environment; Elizabeth W. Saadi, the Kansas state registrar; and Kay Haug, director of the state’s vital statistics office, a unit of the Kansas Department of Health and Environment.
Bensimon said the state's unjust policy made it easier for people to discriminate against him, “on top of the discrimination I already confront based on my disability.”

“I’m here to seek justice,” said Nyla Foster, a transgender woman and one of the plaintiffs. “My birth certificate does not reflect the gender I identify as, and I’m here to correct it so I can move forward with my life.”|

At a press conference in front of the federal courthouse in Kansas City, Kansas, Lambda legal attorney Omar Gonzalez-Pagan explained why it was challenging the state's transphobic documentation stance.

"A birth certificate is more than a piece of paper.It's the quintessential identity document that follows a person from birth to death.  It must reflect a person's identity."

Gonzales-Pagan also pointed out that birth certificates can determine access to education, employment, healthcare, travel and impact the ability to obtain other identity documents.

Good luck to you in overturning this unjust policy.  Thanks Lambda Legal for having our backs again.

Chief Justice Lee Rosenthal Dismisses Drag Queen Storytime Lawsuit

Some good news to report for you out of Houston this week. 

As y'all know, the fake faith based hatemongers have their draws in a bunch over the monthly Drag Queen Storytime event held at the Freed-Montrose Public Library.

A group of faith based haters with a long history of filing frivolous suits in Chris Sevier, Tex Christopher, Tracy Shannon and Calvin Miller filed another one in federal court to stop this weekend's edition of Drag Queen Storytime from taking place at the Free-Montrose Library in the historic Montrose gayborhood on Saturday.

Sevier tried to claim that the library hosting Drag Queen Storytime amounted to the establishment of 'the religion of secular humanism".   His frivolous suit history includes one filed against Apple in 2013 for 'making a computer that allowed him to access pornography'.  A few years later he filed lawsuits in several states including Texas seeking the right for him to marry his computer. 

Sevier also filed suits against four Democratic congress members who flew rainbow flags outside their offices claiming that by doing so, they were 'promoting the religion of homosexuality'.

Tracy Shannon's problem with Drag Queen Storytime is that her husband allegedly left her for a trans woman.   And that pertains to Drag Queen Storytime in what way, Miss Thang?

Co plaintiff Tex Christopher claimed the event is 'grooming people to be transgender', and even threw in a comment about the suicide rates of trans children to buttress his weak argument.

"Why would they want to do that?  Transgender children have the highest suicide rate.  Why would we want to groom our children to be transgender?" Christopher said.

Naw Tex, its anti-trans hate and oppression coming from you, other evilgelicals, the TERF's and the Republican party that play a major role in spiking the trans suicide rate, not Drag Queen Storytime.

Another point is that drag queen does not equal to transgender person.   Trans people can and sometimes do work as drag artists.   But drag queens are predominately male performers who sometimes come out as trans people.

The case ended up in Chief Justice Lee H. Rosenthal's court, and she wasted little time in dismissing the suit and by extension, denying their attempt to get an injunction to stop this weekend's edition of Drag Queen Storytime.

On October 19, 2018, Tex Christopher, Tracy Shannon, Calvin Miller, and Mark Sevier sued [library system head] Rhea Lawson and [Houston Mayor] Sylvester Turner, alleging that Drag Queen Storytime at the Freed-Montrose Library violates the Establishment Clause of the United States Constitution… On October 23, 2018, the plaintiffs applied for a temporary restraining order to enjoin the event… There is no basis to support the requested relief. The application is denied.

Legal mic drop.  The best part of Judge Rosenthal snatching their legal wigs is that they can't claim she is a 'liberal judge' because she was appointed by George HW Bush.

The fake faith based haters have appealed to ruling, but the end result is Drag Queen Storytime will go on as scheduled this Saturday.   The suburban haters will probably be protesting it.

Kaepernick NFL Collusion Case Going To Trial

The NFL was legally sacked in their ongoing mislandling of the Colin Kaepernick case.

Arbitrator Stephen B. Burbank ruled Tuesday that he was denying the NFL's attempt to dismiss Kaepernick's complaint that since becoming a free agent in March 2017, his inability to secure a new contract has been due to NFL owners violating Article 17, Section 1 of the collective bargaining agreement between the owners and the NFL Players Association.

Translation:  Kaepernick has a valid enough case to go to trial.

The NFL owners (probably being egged on by Jerry Jones)  are being racistly stupid here.   All they had to do was sign Kaepernick to a contract and his complaint would have been dismissed.   Signing Kaepernick would have also allowed the anthem protest controversy to fade from the headlines.

But instead, because of their myopic lack of vision, it is front and center for this 2018 season starting next week and they are going to trail for a collusion case that Kaepernick probably has a good shot at winning.

It remains to be seen how this case continues to play out, but if you're in Kap's position, it's looking good for you right now and bad for the NFL

25th Anniversary Of The ICTLEP Conference

Today is the 25th anniversary of the first of eventually six ICTLEP conferences that took place in Houston from 1992 to 1997.

The International Conference on Transgender Law and Employment Policy (ICTLEP) was conceived by Phyllis Frye as an annual event that would focus on developing progressive legal strategies in employment and nondiscrimination law for the transgender population.

She had initially pitched the idea of the event to then International Foundation For Gender Education (IFGE) Executive Director Merissa Sherrill Lynn in the summer of 1991, as a traveling event under its auspices, but she told Frye that IFGE wasn't interested in hosting it.

Frye in the fall of 1991 ran for and won the vice presidency of the Houston based Gulf Coast Transgender Community (GCTC)  group on the platform of hosting a transgender law conference in Houston in 1992.

Planning then began with a group of local activists and GCTC members forming a committee that laid the groundwork for the historic conference to happen combined with Phyllis' attendance at the February 1992 Texas T Party and the March 1992 IFGE Convention.

Frye's attendance at those large trans conferences was crucial in those pre-Internet days to the success of the ICTLEP conference she and GCTC were planning.  It helped spread the word about the fledgling conference, and helped get attorneys who were interested in the different areas of the law that needed presenters to volunteer to do so

The organization of it gathered steam to the point that when the inaugural event kicked off at the Hilton Southwest Freeway in Southwest Houston on August 26-30, 1992, it did so with over 50 people in attendance.

The conference was a success, especially on the financial end, and led to the hosting of five more ICTLEP conferences.

The ICTLEP conferences from 1992-1997 were crucial for not only laying the groundwork for much of the subsequent transgender rights law and principles that we fight and lobby for in the modern trans rights movement, they also helped train my generation of trans rights activists and attorneys..

The International Bill of Gender Rights, Health Law Standards of Care, and policies for imprisoned transgender people came out of ICTLEP.   The Proceedings published after every ICTLEP conference documented for posterity what happened in those presentations on the different areas of law being discussed.

ICTLEP also led to the organization of the national trans rights org It's Time America, the second national trans lobby day in Washington DC in October 1994,  building working relationships between the legal and advocate wings of our newly emerging and energized modern trans rights movement, and more importantly led to the trans people who were in the legal profession becoming more out and open about who they were and forging working relationships with each other and the activist community.

It also led to trans folks becoming participating members in national gay legal organizations and conferences like Lavender Law.

And at a time in which the Trump misadministration is hell bent along with his fundamentalist anti-trans haters who advise him are getting orgasmic over the thought of eviscerating the human rights of transgender people in the US, the lessons learned and built upon over the last 25 years since the ICTLEP conferences took place here are going to be applied and tested as we fight 45's unjust policies in the federal courts.

But it all started on this day at a Houston Hilton hotel in the summer of 1992 thanks to the vision of Phyllis Frye and those early trans leaders in GCTC and elsewhere to make it happen. .