Fort Worth Expands Anti Discrimination Ordinance To Cover Trans People

After a marathon session in front of a packed chamber, the Fort Worth City Council voted 6-3 to expand the city's anti-discrimination ordinance to cover transgender people. The ordinance already prevented discrimination based on race, sex, religion or sexual orientation.

Much of the debate centered on the broader proposals of which some of them the Fort Worth City Council has already tacitly approved.

City staffers will be trained to respectfully interface with the TBLG community, and the Fort Worth Police Department has appointed a liaison to the community.

Other recommendations such as offering domestic-partner benefits and expanding the city health insurance plan to cover gender reassignment procedures are being studied.

"We believe, as you do, that we should respect each other," said Jon Nelson of Fairness Fort Worth. "The foundation of these recommendations isn’t preferential treatment, it’s equal treatment."

"Being a transgender person has nothing to do with a person’s ability to do their job," Victoria Van Fleet said.

I was not shocked by the outcome. Dallas has had TBLG protections on the books for several years now. Fort Worth has a sizable TBLG population despite its fundie rep.

Civic leaders were serious about passing this in the wake of the contentious Rainbow Room raid. I've also chronicled one Fort Worth transperson's struggle with discrimination, but her story isn't unique in Cowtown.

It may be a surprise to you readers, but as I told you peeps, my birth state is progressive in the cities, but regressive in the rural areas. East Texas is another matter that will take a post to explain.

Congratulations Fort Worth! This segues nicely into my next thought that is directed to the politicos in my hometown.

Now Houston, if Dallas, Fort Worth and Austin can do this, what's stopping the largest city in the state from stepping up to the plate and protecting all transpeople residing in Houston not employed by the city from discrimination?

Thank You Trans Vets!

Today is Veteran's Day here in the States.

We take this day to remember the people who not only sacrifice to serve our country in the military, but as recent events have made painfully clear, give their lives to protect it and their fellow Americans as well.

I wanted to take this moment to give a Veteran's Day shoutout to Monica Helms and Angela Brightfeather, the founders, president and vice president of TAVA, the Transgender American Veterans Association.

TAVA works tirelessly on behalf of transvets to advocate for their issues. They also educate our military on issues and policies that affect past, present and future military personnel who happen to be transgender.

I have had the pleasure of meeting in our community many transvets who proudly served our country. Our transvets such as Phyllis Frye and Autumn Sandeen have also played major roles in helping us get organized and providing leadership to our community in various ways as well.

So from a blogger who has much love and respect for your service to our country, I wanted to say, Thank You, Trans vets.

Thank you for everything you do to make the trans community, your local areas, your states, the nation and the world a better place for all of us.

Brittney Dunks*

I've talked about my 6 foot 8 Houston homegirl Brittney Griner a few times on this blog and her mad b-ball skills.

With the NCAA women's collegiate basketball season about to crank up, my attention has been increasingly focused on Waco, TX and the 2009-2010 edition of the Baylor Lady Bears.

She's not officially the seventh woman to dunk in an NCAA game yet, but she's already getting warmed up. Baylor's freshman phenom finally got a slam dunk opportunity in a Saturday exhibition matchup against Incarnate Word.

With 14:25 left in Baylor's 81-52 victory she made it count. Baylor called a set play for Griner that ended with a right handed jam that fired up her team and the 6,000 attendees in the Ferrell Center.



With the crowd still pumped from the dunk, she sprinted back to the other end of the court and blocked a shot on Incarnate Word's ensuing possession.

Oh yeah, Griner scored 25 points on 12-of-16 shooting, had 11 rebounds (six offensive) and five blocked shots in 25 minutes of work.

Not bad for a freshman.

The competition gets tougher on November 15 when the Number 7 ranked Lady Beats take on Pat Summitt's Number 8 ranked Tennessee Lady Vols in Knoxville.

That should be a fun game to watch.

Sesame Street 40th Anniversary

On this date forty years ago a TV show debuted that would revolutionize children's television.

November 10, 1969 was the first broadcast for Sesame Street and it's lovable cast of characters Big Bird, Kermit the Frog, Bert and Ernie, Grover, The Cookie Monster and Oscar the Grouch.

Sesame Street 40 years later now has an audience of 8 million viewers on 350 stations in 120 countries. It's an enjoyable blend of education and entertainment that easily crosses cultural and generational boundaries and is the longest running children's show on television.

The show is most famous for Jim Henson's Muppets, who became so popular that they ended up with their own show in the 80's and a hit motion picture.

The cast of characters has also expanded over the years as some of the Sesame Street faves like Kermit migrated to The Muppet Show. and new ones such as The Count, Zoe, and Elmo arrived on Sesame Street and became the favorites of a new generation of kids.

Sesame Street not only keeps the show fresh and exciting for new generations of kids, it has hosted countless celebrities doing their part to help 'edutain' kids. They've crossed a wide variety of musical genres throughout the years from Destiny's Child, Stevie Wonder, Crystal Gayle and Sheryl Crow to legends such as Lena Horne, Tony Bennett, Placido Domingo and Ray Charles.

It has also had appearances, from astronauts Sally Ride and Buzz Aldrin, pro athletes, political figures, newscasters such as Diane Sawyer and Brian Williams, chef Emeril Lagasse, Regis Philbin, and Maya Angelou

Former First Ladies Barbara Bush and Laura Bush have appeared on the show. Today's 40th anniversary show will feature First Lady Michelle Obama. She'll be making an appearance today to discuss healthy eating habits and exercise.

Happy Anniversary Sesame Street! May you continue to be around for another generation of kids large and small.

Fort Worth City Council To Vote On Panel Recomendations

In the wake of a highly publicized Fort Worth Police Department and Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission raid on the Rainbow Lounge that took place June 28, a task force was formed to look into the complaints that arose from that contentious raid.

Five people were arrested for public intoxication in that raid and one patron was taken to the hospital with a serious head injury. Complaints poured in about the use of excessive force during the raid as well as accusations that the Fort Worth police and the TABC targeted the bar because of its GLBT clientele.

The commission released its recommendations November 3 for giving Fort Worth's GLBT residents better access and equal treatment at City Hall.

Those recommendations are:

■ Extending the city’s nondiscrimination ordinance to include gender expression. A vote on the recommendation is scheduled for Tuesday.

■ Training for all city employees and elected officials on dealing with the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community. Police, fire and front-line customer service representatives will be trained within two years.

■ Extending domestic partner benefits, shared pensions and family leave for gay and lesbian city employees.

■ Including a company’s record on domestic partner benefits when considering city tax breaks.

■ Including sex-change surgery in city health insurance coverage.

■ Posting nondiscrimination language on job notices, including a letter to police recruits.

■ Establishing support groups for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender employees.

■ Holding educational fairs and using public events and media to increase awareness of the city’s anti-discrimination ordinance.

■ Pushing for state and federal anti-discrimination laws.


According to a Fort Worth Star Telegram article, Fort Worth council members appeared to favor most of the proposals. Councilman Joel Burns, who is gay, said, "I think everyone on this council wants to demonstrate that we’re committed to protect the full rights of everyone in our city."

Fort Worth City Manager Dale Fisseler concurred with the recommendations, although he asked for time to research the financial impact of some, such as the pension and healthcare changes.

The Fort Worth City Council will meet at 5 PM CST tomorrow to vote on those recommendations.

Kelli Busey of Planet Transgender is asking all GLBT people in the Dallas-Fort Worth metro area show up for this critical meeting because the haters definitely will.

Fort Worth back in the day was headquarters for several televangelists, and still has a fundamentalist streak running through it despite being the home of Texas Christian University.

The Forces of Intolerance have mobilized in an attempt to shut GLBT people out of City Hall and do a replay of this summer's nekulturny town hall behavior.

Their mission is to browbeat and either intimidate the Fort Worth City Council into voting against the recommendations or tabling it to give them more time to stir crap up and bring out of town reinforcements in.

It's up to you peeps who are drum majors for justice to stop them, stand up to the bullies and give the Fort Worth City Council the opportunity to hopefully hand them another embarrassing defeat.

The Berlin Wall Falls-20th Anniversary

For much of my life, the Berlin Wall was part of the world I grew up in.

It was created on August 13, 1961, eight months before I was born. It was strengthened and improved over several decades and symbolized not only the dividing line between West and East Berlin, but between communism and democracy.

It cost 136 East Germans their lives trying to cross it to freedom in West Berlin and billions for the East German government to maintain it and a similar barrier between the two Germanys.

It even became part of my own lexicon. If I had a 'no way in Hades' intention of doing something, I'd say, "That'll happen when the Berlin Wall comes down."

On November 9, 1989 it did.

The pump had been primed by demonstrations in Leipzig, East Germany that summer. They were allowed to happen despite a massive police and military presence. Remember the East Germans were the first to congratulate the Chinese government after the violent suppression of the June 4 Tienanmen Square demonstrations in Beijing.

Those demonstrations were fueled by Hungary and Czechoslovakia's August decision to open their border with Austria and allowing East German citizens on vacation there to leave their countries for the West.

At a routine late afternoon news conference, East German Politburo member Gunter Schabowski casually declared that East Germans would be free to travel to the West immediately.

The decision had already been made, but Schabowski got the date it was going to start crossed up. He tried to clarify his comments and said the new rules would take hold at midnight, but events moved faster as the word spread.

Thousands of East Germans surged toward the Wall checkpoints, including future German chancellor Angela Merkel, overwhelming the border guards. With no orders from the top forthcoming, they opened the gates and kicked off the biggest celebration in history.

The Wall fell, and months later East Germany ceased to exist as well.

Hard to believe twenty years have passed since then.

Coogs Escape Tulsa With 46-45 Win

The Number 13 ranked Houston Cougars scored 9 points in the final 21 seconds, including a 51 yard field goal from walk on freshman kicker Matt Hogan to escape with a 46-45 win over the Tulsa Golden Hurricane.

After scoring a touchdown to narrow the deficit to 45-43, Keenum was sacked on the two point conversion play to preserve the Tulsa lead. UH recovered the ensuing onside kick and the stage for the Cardiac Cougar heroics was set.

Case Keenum connected on 40 of 60 passes for 522 years, but the biggest was hitting a 13 yard pass to a wide open Tyron Carrier to get them into field goal range.

hogan had never kicked a field goal beyond 34 yards prior to this game winning heroics, but nailed this one to move the Cougars to 8-1 and stay tied with SMU atop the C-USA West Division standings.

Next up is the University of Central Florida Knights in Orlando.

And fellas, can we wrap up the game before halftime for a change? The last second wins are fun to watch but stress inducing as well.

Thanks Again, Leona!

This is one of those 'today is a good day' moments.

I mentioned four months ago that I was given the honor of writing a commentary for my sis and blogger Leona Lo's wildly successful sold out play the Ah Kua Show.

I was surprised and flattered she asked me to write the commentary. What made it so much cooler was that she's one of the many people in the international trans community I have much love, respect and admiration for.

She's been doing a wonderful job in Singapore helping to educate and dispel myths about trans people in her homeland.

Now that I've shown my Singaporean sister some love, I'll move on in this post.

My mailbox had a surprise waiting for me earlier today.

I'd forgotten that Leona asked for my address a few months ago in order to send me a program from the show.

When Dawn handed me my mail, it finally clicked who it was from when I saw the Singaporean stamps on the envelope and eagerly tore into it.

Sure enough, there was my Ah Kua Show program.

Leona, thanks again for giving me the honor of writing that commentary and in a small way, be a part of that show. It was comforting to know that even though I couldn't be there physically, part of me was there in terms of my composed words in the program.

Nikki Reed and Kristen Stewart Set For Gender Bending Roles In Upcoming Movie 'K-11'

White it's irritating to some people in the transgender community who feel our own should be doing these roles, Hollywood has other ideas.

The trend of ciswomen playing transwomen in motion pictures continues with Nikki Reed and Kristen Stewart from Twilight being the latest actresses to attempt to do so in the upcoming movie 'K-11'.

The movie is set for release in 2010, and the title refers to the section of the LA County Jail in which celebrities and GLBT people are housed.

They are placed there to avoid putting them in dangerous and potentially life threatening situations with general population prisoners.

It focuses on a successful record executive who is jailed in K-11 on suspicion of murder and is housed in the dormitory like facility.

Details about the movie have yet to be released, but Reed will play Mousie, the cell block leader, while Stewart will play Butterfly.

UH Cougars Take On Tulsa

My favorite college football team will take on the University of Tulsa Golden Hurricane at 6:30 PM EST later tonight.

The 7-1 (3-1 C-USA West) and Number 13 ranked Coogs stroll into Tulsa with a one game lead over their C-USA West Division rivals. A victory puts them one step closer the the division title and a berth in the C-USA championship game.

Sesame Street Trashes Fox News

Got a chuckle out of this one. Sesame Street is approaching its 40th Anniversary show on Tuesday, and it seems like our conservafriends are a little pissy because of this segment that aired on a recent show.



The truth hurts doesn't it? It isn't the first time that Sesame Street has parodied real life shows. What was said was right on the money.

The truth hurts, doesn't it conservafools? Fox News not only has trashy shows, the whole network is trashy.

Transpeople Are Part Of The Diverse Mosaic Of Life 3

This feature is proving to be a very popular one.

Just as I've done in the previous two posts, I'm simply compiling photos that show transpeople around the world just following our dreams, fighting for our rights, living our lives and doing things that prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that we are part of the diverse mosaic of life on Planet Earth.



Ethan St. Pierre lobbying a legislative assistant in Massachusetts



Laverne Cox at the GLAAD Awards



Greek model Jenny Hiloudaki from her calendar



Leiomy Maldonado with her Vogue Evolution crew.




Tania Luga and her legal team after a court victory in Argentina




A pride march in Guatemala



The ladies of STRAP preparing to march




German singer and model Kim Petras



Dana International at an Israeli political rally



Rappers Pam Jones and Foxxjazell




Member of the Vietnamese group Pattaya performing

Shut Up Fool! Awards-We Got Rights Edition

It was a good week for transpeople as far as civil rights goes. Tmpa expanded their civil rights ordinance to protect transpeople yesterday. The good citizens of Kalamazoo, MI handed the Force of Intolerance another crushing defeat Tuesday as they overwhelmingly approved Ordinance 1859. ENDA had a senate hearing yesterday.

While these are positive trends, we still have much work to do. Even if we achieve our main goals, the work will not be finished until conservatives stop jacking with people civil rights because they hate us, their misguided self perception they are morally superior to 'errbody' and have the right to do so for selfish political gain.

That being said, it's time for our weekly reminder as our awards mascot reminds us, fools are everywhere.

So what fol or group of fools distinguished themselves this week? Too numerous to choose from. Rush Limbaugh, Rep. Michele Bachman (R-MN), Orly Taitz, Michelle Malkin and Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC) are probably locks for our Shut Up Fool of the Year competition along with this week's winner. I'm thinking about letting you loyal TransGriot readers add your own nominations for the Shut Up Fool of the Year Award.

But back to the 'bidness' at hand. Who earned our illustrious award this week?

Glenn Beck. For comparing health care reform to Osama Bin Laden 9-11.

Keith Olbermann says it best here.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Glenn Beck, shut the hell up, fool!

Tampa Expands Civil Rights For Transpeople

Add another Florida metropolis to the list of cities protecting the civil rights of their transgender residents.

The Tampa City Council this morning voted unanimously to expand its human rights ordinance to protect transgender people from discrimination.

The vote extends laws prohibiting discrimination in housing, employment and public accommodations based on sexual orientation, sex, race and religion to include 'gender identity or expression' as a protected class.

Tampa's Human Rights Board has been discussing the issue for the past year and has requested the changes. Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio and several council members supported it.

Tampa joins 16 Florida municipalities, at least 13 states across the country and several Fortune 500 companies who have extended such protections to transsexuals and others with a gender identity that differs from their birth gender.

It remains to be seen if the haters try to come after this law in the wake of back to back lopsided losses in Gainesville, FL and Kalamazoo, MI.

Thinking About My Ex-Classmates

My 30 year high school reunion is coming up next year, and as that date approaches I find myself reminiscing more about my school days and the classmates I'm not in contact with.

There's a core group that I'm in regular contact with thanks to Facebook, Twitter or the other social networking sites such as Classmates.com but there are others who I haven't seen or spoken to since we left high school.

I find myself musing at times about those classmates I haven't seen since we stepped off JJ's campus for that final time as students in June 1980.

I wonder how they're doing in their lives, if they found love or had hard luck with it. I follow the news about my successful classmates and wonder if the ones I haven't seen since 1980 are doing likewise, if it has eluded them, or if they were just coming into their own now. I ponder about whether they are dealing with trying circumstances.

I even wonder about how they look now vis a vis our school days.

But the cool thing about next year's reunion is I already won the 'Most Changed Award' at the 2000 one. I can just focus on having a good time and getting reconnected with my classmates.

And I'm looking forward to going back home to do so.

0 For 31-What Now?

The gay community lost another marriage fight in Maine, and in their pissivity over the loss they're once again a la California, letting the negativity flow.

I was wondering who Dan Savage and the gay community were going to blame for this latest loss since African-Americans make up only 1% of Maine's population.

Lo and behold, they found a Black person to blame for their loss anyway.

President Obama.

Keep it up, people. But while you're bitching about what happened in Maine and pointing fingers, take a moment to look in the mirror and point one at yourself as well.

While you're jumping down President Obama's throat for not speaking up and in your words 'being a good ally', y'all see to have forgotten all the times you dismissed coalition building opportunities with other groups by uttering the words 'it's not a gay issue'.

Politicians are also looking at that 0-31 number as well. If you folks thought they and the general public weren't paying attention to that stat plus the four decades of shady behavior directed at the trans community, they were.

The noted the legions of gay and lesbian people actively working to cut trans people out of legislation we desperately needed while uttering the words 'we'll come back for you', 'they need more education on this issue', 'get over it' or 'you're not part of 'our' movement'.

After watching that, I wouldn't doubt politicians have in the back of their minds, 'If this is how they treat their allies, how loyal are they going to be to me?'

The karmic wheel is a rhymes with itch, too.

It's not fun being cut out of legislation is it? It's a pain watching politicians vote to keep you a second class citizen or not speak about you in public.

Not fun to watch the fundies put together a petition drive designed to put your civil rights on the electoral chopping block, and basically violate all of the Ten Commandments while campaigning to do so.

Now you know what it's like to walk in the trans community's shoes.

It's aggravating to have rights that you already possess taken away, as transpeople's marriage rights are thanks to the conservabacklash from your gay marriage push.

I'm also getting sick of seeing the 'homophobic African-American' meme raise its ugly head across the Gayosphere as you peeps work through your righteous anger over the loss.

Um, did you not forget that some GLBT people not only happen to be chocolate flavored, but bust their asses to support this issue? Probably not.

I guess when y'all say to non-gay America that GLBT Americans are 'just like you', it doesn't include us or any POC in the equation, huh?.

Trans community leaders warned in 2003 that it was a tactical mistake to shift the organizing focus of the GLBT movement from passing GLBT rights at local, state and the federal level to pushing marriage equality.

Some gay people have the misguided belief that all civil rights flow from marriage equality. No, they don't.

I'm in favor of marriage equality. But being an ally doesn't mean that I check my brain at the door either, I can't comment in the spirit of Kingian love when y'all screw up or that I'm not supposed to express my constitutional rights to speak my mind just as you insist on doing when you bash the President.

And lets get real, all civil rights do not flow from marriage, nor will everyone in the GLBT community benefit. All you have to do is look north of the border at Canada to see that truism play out.

African-Americans have been able to get legally married since emancipation. It still took us over 100 years, a lot of shed blood, several court decisions, marches, and several federal Civil Rights Acts just to get to first class citizenship status, and we're still fighting tooth and nail just to avoid any slippage.

If you want marriage, not only are you going to have to rethink the strategies for achieving it, you are going to have to come to grips with the fact it may take 25 to 100 years and a federal constitutional amendment to do so.

After 31 straight losses, it's past time to seriously consider deemphasizing marriage as THE organizing push for the GLBT rights movement.

It's time to stop playing in the Religious Right' backyard and push a full equality strategy that puts Constitutional arguments front and center, not the marriage equality ones that specious religious ones and half-truth, lies and falsehoods dominate.

You might recognize the strategy. It's the one my people successfully used.

November 4, 2008

It's one time I will happily say (and will write the post on November 5 if it plays out) I was wrong about an issue. I've always told friends that I believed the United States was too obstinately racist to ever put in my lifetime an African-American man in the Oval Office. I've always believed for that reason the first African-American president would be a woman rather than an African-American man.

Monica Roberts, October 1, 2008

I wrote that in advance of the November 2008 presidential election. I'm still smiling a year later. Today marks the one year anniversary of President Obama's historic election as president of the United States.

I won't forget what I was doing the night I heard the historic network calls that he had passed the magic 270 electoral votes with the close of polls in California, Oregon and Washington state.

I remember my eyes welling up with tears as I watched the spontaneous celebrations that erupted in Louisville, Washington DC, cities all around the United States, across the globe and especially in his father's Kenyan homeland.

For the first time in a long while, African descended people here in the United Sates and across the Diaspora stood a little taller as our hearts swelled with pride over the fact that an African descended man was going to run the most powerful country on the planet.

I came home from work that night and gleefully wrote the 'Yes We Did' post I'd promised to do if he was elected.

It's been full of historic firsts such as selecting the first Latina Supreme Court Justice in Sonia Sotomayor.

There have been trying times as well for President Obama, but he has the country moving in the right direction as we approach the end of his first year in office in January.

Annise Parker In Houston Mayoral Runoff

Was keeping a close eye on the mayoral election back in Houston last night. I was happy to see that city controller Annise Parker is headed to a December 12 runoff against City Attorney Gene Locke.

With 100 percent of precincts reporting in Harris, Fort Bend and Montgomery counties, Parker led the field with 31 percent of the vote, followed by Locke at 26 percent. Brown came in third at 22 percent, trailed by Morales at 20 percent. Three other minor candidates on the mayoral ballot totaled 1 percent.

Even though Parker led most of the night, she wanted to make sure her supporters knew that they had unfinished business.

“This race is not over,” she said. “Join me at headquarters tomorrow. We'll get back to work, and in five weeks, we'll claim victory.”

The runoff will have the element of history coursing through it. At the end of the night on December 12 Houston will either have its second woman mayor and first openly gay woman mayor of any large city or our second African-American mayor.

Haters Lose In Kalamazoo! GLBT Rights Law Passes!

Haters lose Haters lose!

With all 19 precincts reporting, the Forces of Intolerance were handed another crushing defeat as they sought to use their reprehensible tactics to attempt to overturn Ordinance 1856.

Just as the voters of Gainesville, FL did earlier this year, 62 percent of Kalamazoo voters approved Ordinance 1856 by a vote of 7,671 in favor to 4,731 against. This margin is larger than the number of outstanding absentee ballots that are currently being counted.

The passage of this ordinance adds protections for gay and transgender people to the city's nondiscrimination ordinance.

In addition, the mayor and the six members of the Kalamazoo City Commission who voted to unanimously pass the law back in June were all reelected.

“Our campaign started with a very basic idea, and today voters confirmed that we are One Kalamazoo,” One Kalamazoo campaign manager Jon Hoadley said in a written statement.

But the bottom line is that the rights of minorities should NEVER have to come up for a vote in the first place. Maybe our side needs to push a constitutional amendment to ban the practice.

The fair minded voters of Kalamazoo, MI have spoken and handed the bigots another bitter defeat. The politicians who voted for it all got reelected.

Thanks, Kalamazoo.

Louisiana JP Who Refused To Marry Interracial Couple Resigns

Keith Bardwell, the Tangipahoa Parish justice of the peace who refused to marry interracial couple Beth Humphrey and Terence McKay a few weeks resigned today after several weeks of resisting calls to step down from several civil rights groups, Governor Bobby Jindal (R) other Louisiana officials and U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA).

Bardwell's term wasn't due to expire until 2014, but quit with a one sentence statement to Louisiana Secretary of State Jay Dardenne and no explanation of his decision.

"I do hereby resign the office of Justice of the Peace for the Eighth Ward of Tangipahoa Parish, Louisiana, effective November 3, 2009."

He also didn't immediately return a call for comment about his resignation

Gov. Bobby Jindal called Bardwell's resignation "long overdue."

"This was the right decision by Mr. Bardwell. What he did was clearly wrong and this resignation was long overdue," Jindal said in a statement released by his office.

Humphrey and McKay have filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against Bardwell, who was elected in 1975 as justice of the peace for Ponchatoula, LA., a town 55 miles north of New Orleans. He claimed before this drama unfolded that this was going to be his last term.

Looks like it ended sooner than he planned. If some couple had spoken up about the injustice that happened to them earlier, he wouldn't have lasted in office this long.

Good riddance.