There was another contentious hearing held about the proposed Baltimore County MD trans rights bill in which once again, the only thing the Forces of Intolerance could hurl at it in a desperate attempt to stop its passage was the Bathroom Meme.
One of their attack lines was already throughly debunked at the January hearing, but that didn't stop the haters from trying to 'scurr' people about transpeople in their bathrooms and lighting up the switchboard.to attempt to sway the Baltimore County Council into voting against Bill 3-12
The bill would add gender identity to existing county laws that prohibit
discrimination in housing, workplaces, and public places, but due to the Hateraid an amendment is being considered that if passed would ensure 3-12 wouldn't apply to public places "that are designated for male or female
use, such as restrooms, bath houses, locker rooms, dressing rooms,
changing rooms, and similar facilities."
In other words, it would leave a gigantic fracking public accommodations loophole in it
Moving on to the haters. We've been reliving ourselves in the gender appropriate restrooms and doing so without incident to you cispeople since Christine Jorgenson stepped off the plane from Denmark 59 years ago this month.
It's y'all cis people attacking us and you foaming at the mouth cisgender transbigots we transfolks have to worry about.
The unjust Massachusetts Trans Rights Bill passed the Massachusetts House on a 95-58 vote yesterday with two Democrats voting against it.and all the GOP opposed to it.
It's now headed to the Massachusetts Senate, and we'll now see what happens to this bill there or if it dies in the Senate despite yanking PA language out of it to make the bigots happy, MTPC.
Critics of the bill claimed a partial win.
"It's
a victory for the safety, privacy and modesty of women and children who
expect to be safe and secure in public bathrooms in the commonwealth,"
said Kris Mineau, president of the Massachusetts Family Institute.
And by the way, public accommodations means more than just the bathroom. You give bigots a millimeter to discriminate against you, they'll take a kilometer to do so.
To see why I'm still pissed about PA language being yanked out of this bill peep these comments from Rand Paul (R-KY) and Fox Noise's John Stossel about wanting to repeal the public accommodations clause from the 1964 Civil Rights Act so business owners have the right to discriminate against you.
I'm still not a happy camper about it, but you Massachusetts transpeople
will have to live with the results of a jacked up bill, and once again
my people will pay the price for your lack of civil rights vision.
I know that at times patience is not a virtue for this community. Seeing that we have the Forces of Intolerance engaged in by any means necessary opposition to trans human rights coverage makes us even less so.
But patience is exactly what is needed at this juncture, and we also need to realize that trans rights progress is a marathon, not a 100 meter sprint we run in world record time.
Like all of y'all I wanted trans human rights coverage yesterday. I get irritated with the delays and roadblocks in passing trans rights legislation that have at times come from our so called allies and frenemies.
But perusing my people's history tells me we are going to have setback and false starts before we move forward. We still struggle to not only get human rights progress that we deserve, but have to fight tooth and nail against any retreat from those gains.
As a marginalized group, we trans people are going to have to realize that this is a long haul process. We are going to have do some patient strategizing, building of alliances, determined and diligent lobbying, long range planning, much hard solid thinking, a lot of hard work, some perseverance, and combine all of that with a lot of faith.
Some of this work we do today to secure our rights we may not get the benefits of it. Some of it we might get an immediate payoff from while other aspects of it may not bear fruit for two, five or ten years.
But that work is necessary for the ultimate success of our trans rights movement and must be done to assure our final victory as we run this civil rights marathon. .
As we run this marathon, some of us may hit the wall and have to drop out of the marathon for a while or slow down the pace of our running until our energy reserves build back up enough for us to get back into it and finish the race.
It's a human rights race we must run to the best of our ability and we must finish for the benefit of future generations of transpeople and our transkids as well. .
There are two openly gay Dallas County elected officials, District Clerk Gary
Fitzsimmons and Sheriff Lupe Valdez who have already established trans employment
protections in their respective departments.
In order to fulfill a campaign promise, the move to add sexual orientation to the non discrimination policy was spearheaded by newly elected Democratic County Judge Clay Jenkins and Commissioner Dr. Elba Garcia, who mistakenly believed that the sexual orientation language would cover trans workers in Dallas County.
When informed it wouldn't, Judge Jenkins sought an opinion from the Dallas County District Attorney about the impact of adding gender identity language to the non discrimination policy.
So far so good.
But for the policy to pass, they need one vote on the five member commissioners court for the policy to pass, and that swing vote is longtime Dallas area civil rights advocate and current County Commissioner John Wiley Price. After last night's scheduled commissioner's court meeting, according to the Dallas Voice Price is still unsure about whether he will vote to add the gender identity language to protect Dallas County trans workers
But Price admitted that the testimony of Maeve O"Connor, a transwoman who spoke during the public comments section of last night's meeting had done more to sway him in that direction than anything said so far.
Note to you transpeeps... Don't be 'scurred' to speak in front of your local governmental bodies, it can make a difference between a trans protective policy passing or failing. Ask EQ Maryland.
But back to Lone Star happenings. Judge Jenkins is still awaiting the impact statement from the Dallas County district attorney, and due to a commissioners court rule, speakers can only appear once a month.
So if you're a Dallas area transperson interested in speaking before Commissioner's Court, contact Rafael McDonnell of Resource Center Dallas. He'd love to hear from you and get you scheduled for a meeting that fits your schedule.
And here's another opportunity to be an agent of your own liberation. If you wish to encourage the Dallas County Commissioners to add gender identity to their non discrimination policy, here's the contact info
Be nice when doing so. As my late grandmother used to say, you can catch more flies with honey than you can with vinegar. Thank Judge Jenkins and Commisioner Garcia for pushing this issue.
County Judge Clay Jenkins – 214-653-7949
Email: Clay.Jenkins@DallasCounty.org
District 1 Maurine Dickey – 214-653-7552
Email: Maurine.Dickey@DallasCounty.org
District 2 Mike Cantrell – 214-653-6100
Email: MCantrell@DallasCounty.org
District 3 John Wiley Price – 214-653-6671
Email: John.Price@DallasCounty.org
District 4 Dr. Elba Garcia – 214-653-6670
Email: Elba.GarciaDDS@DallasCounty.org
House Bill 235, the Gender Identity Non Discrimination Act was introduced in the Maryland House of Delegates by Del. Joseline Pena-Melnyk and Del. Ariana Kelly.
However, there's a major problem with it. The GINDA doesn't include 'public accommodations' language while the four previous Maryland trans specific rights bills did.
Without that 'public acconmodations' language, it still leaves the door open for transpeople to be discriminated against, and as we know too well, if you give the bigots a millimeter, they will take that millimeter and discriminate with it .
Trans people in the Old Line State are justifiably concerned about the lack of effort Equality MD seems to be putting in this bill vis a vis the marriage equality one. They still remember being cut out of the 2001 rights bill that protects GL people only, so Maryland transpeeps, in order to avoid being thrown under the bus again, time to be agents of your own liberation.
Go to Annapolis, lobby your legislators and get the GINDA bill passed with the language you need in it your damned selves .
The ability to go to the gender appropriate bathroom may not be of major importance to you marriage obsessed GL peeps, but to transpeople it is essential.
We see this as currently constructed as nothing more than an incremental approach, which we reject..
Bottom line is we painfully know the incremental approach to our legislation doesn't work. While the Maryland legislature has the political will, control of both houses and a friendly governor willing to sign it, let's load up what transpeople need in one comprehensive bill, get it passed and into law, then we can get busy defending it from the right wing attack on it that is as sure to come as a Baltimore Ravens blitz.
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One of their attack lines was already throughly debunked at the January hearing, but that didn't stop the haters from trying to 'scurr' people about transpeople in their bathrooms and lighting up the switchboard.to attempt to sway the Baltimore County Council into voting against Bill 3-12
Here's where you get to fight back against the haters and help our transbrothers and trans sisters in Maryland. . 
