Worth Repeating

Diana wrote this on her blog on Saturday and it needs repeating here on Monday.

Fluff

[RANT]

That is what the readers want.

A couple of weeks ago I posted about Fantasia Fair… I set a record for visits to my blog!

When I write about a trans woman being beaten with a 2x4… 30 or 40 hits.

When I write about a Connecticut politician trying to strip health insurance from us… nothing.

When I write about a bill to prevent trans children from transitioning… again 30 or 40 hits.

When I wrote about Fantasia Fair… 1200 hits!

People, one day you are going to wake up and find that it is now illegal for us to go out in public. Get your head out of the sand. Hate crimes against trans people are skyrocketing! Laws against us has turned into an epidemic! Dozens and dozens of laws have been introduced not only in red states, but also in blues states. Courts have ruled against us in housing, employment and in public accommodations.

They don’t care if you only crossdress on weekends, they don’t care if you have transitioned. All they care about is that they hate your guts and want to see you dead! Dead! Dead! The murder of trans people this year is on its way of setting a record for our murders.

Harvey Milk, at speech given on Gay Freedom Day (1978-06-25) in San Francisco said,

Gay brothers and sisters, you must come out. Come out to your parents. I know that it is hard and will hurt them, but think about how they will hurt you in the voting booth! Come out to your relatives. Come out to your friends, if indeed they are your friends. Come out to your neighbors, to your fellow workers, to the people who work where you eat and shop. Come out only to the people you know, and who know you, not to anyone else. But once and for all, break down the myths. Destroy the lies and distortions. For your sake. For their sake.

It was true then, it is true now.

You upset their 1950 view of the United States; they do not like you if you are different from them whether it is your skin color, your religion, your sexual orientation, your gender identity – you are different from them and they hate feeling “uncomfortable.”

You can’t hide, it is time for action.

Get out and be an activist just by being yourself.

[/RANT]

Wearing Madeleine

Femulate reader Sue Richmond during a trip to Kew Gardens in London.
Click here to visit her blog.

Male Woman

70 years old today and counting

Today is International Women's Day. 

As we prepare to celebrate International Women’s Day on March 8, our resolve to keep pushing for gender equality is stronger than ever. And we won’t stop until girls and women are equal everywhere.

That’s because equality is her birthright, enshrined in the UN Charter, but it isn’t her reality. Despite some progress, there is no place or part of life where a girl or woman has the equal rights or opportunities as a boy or man.

As a male woman, I am very sympathetic to these goals. Though some would say that I have “male privilege,” I would argue that male women are treated worse than cisgender women and I yearn to achieve the same equality sought by women.

Even living much of my life disguised as a man, my natural femininity marked me as less than a man and I was treated accordingly by both males and females. 

Living as a male woman was an improvement. I was living as my true self and females seemed to embrace me as someone who had joined their team. On the other hand, males treated me even more poorly than they did when I was in my man disguise.

I am sure that all male women have had similar experiences and also long for gender equality.

Wearing New York & Company

Olive

Bad News and Good News

By Paula Gaikowski

Last week, there was bad news for transgender persons and there was good news. 

First the good news, the House passed the Equality Act, a bill that would extend basic rights to the LGBTQ community. It just needs to get past the Senate with 60 votes where I am sure it’s in for a fight. Ironically the overwhelming majority of Americans are in favor of the law (many assume that LGBTQ already have these protections).

If you walk down the hallway in the Capitol, you will see the transgender flag proudly displayed in front of the office of Congresswoman Marie Newman. The congresswoman put it there in support of her 20-year-old transgender daughter.

Now for the bad news, Congresswoman Marjorie Greene reacted to the flag by posting a transphobic sign meant to appeal to people’s fears and prejudices in the culture war that the GOP stokes daily in their only hope of gaining the electorate.

The sign she posted reads, “There are only two genders, Trust the science.”

There are so many things wrong with that statement besides just being hurtful and hateful.

1. Gender is a social construct, not biological. Ironically, after denigrating science when it comes to climate change and the pandemic, Greene uses science as a tool, although incorrectly.

2. Greene probably was referring to biological sex. However, it is scientifically evident that intersex persons exist. A common argument amongst transphobic people is that you are either XX or XY chromosomed and that defines your sex and gender absolutely. Intersex persons are much more common than one would think. Here’s a list of famous intersexed persons.

3. Her statement that there are only two genders is also incorrect. Let us not forgot the non-binary members of our community. Our culture has predominately recognized two genders, male and female and that Ms. Greene, is where most of us transgender persons struggle. We struggle with being the wrong biological sex and along with our biology, we are assigned a social gender. Gender and sex are two different things and transgender persons struggle with both.

All of this illustrates how far we have come in the battle for transgender rights, but also how far we must go. When I think back to my 20’s, the idea that a congressperson would plant the transgender flag on Capitol Hill and be advocating for her transgender daughter was a distant dream. Add to it the fact that being transgender is no longer a tabloid curiosity, but common in all our communities. 

Wherever you are in your journey, whether closeted or transitioned, remember not to be afraid to advocate for our community. It’s time to speak up and defend transgender people by showing our support. We can object to rude jokes and stereotypes, correct persons misconceptions and support gay and transgender colleagues. We need to take a stand and show acceptance and support for transgender persons and make transphobic behavior socially unacceptable.

Wearing London Times

Mateusz Jakubiec femulated Lene Nystrøm Rasted (Aqua) on Polish television's Twoja Twarz Brzmi Znajomo.
You can view this femulation on YouTube.

Supremes decide it’s illegal to be fired for bring transgender

In a 6-3 decision just released this morning, the U.S. Supreme Court decided that it is illegal for an employer to fire anyone for being transgender. Details to follow as soon as I get them.

Click here for the story from CNN.

Click here for the story from HuffPost.

Click here for the story from Fox News.

Eavesdropping

I work with engineers. Cubicles populated by hardware and software engineers surround my cubicle. Due to their proximity, eavesdropping is unavoidable, but not very interesting because most of the time they talk about work and their current projects.

When their discussions stray from work-related issues, they seem to be an apolitical bunch. There is one fellow who is fascinated by Trump, but most of the crew keep their political views close to the vest and talk about other non-work matters.

But out of the blue Thursday morning, three engineers have a discussion about how the country is divided... yadda, yadda, yadda... Someone brings up the transgender bathroom issue and I am all ears.

One engineer said, "I don't understand what the big deal is about if a transgender woman is dressed like a woman and uses the women's restroom or if a transgender man is dressed like a man and uses the men's restroom. Who cares?"

End of discussion.

Hurray for our team!

Wearing Polo.

Ted Brightwell on stage in La Cage Aux Folles.

End of the Tunnel

Can you see the light at the end of the tunnel?

The Philippines is set to elect its first out transgender person to public office in a breakthrough for the predominantly Catholic country's LGBT community.

Geraldine Roman, who has been living as a woman for more than two decades, is set to win the congressional seat in Bataan previously held by her mother, Herminia Roman.

With 97.2 per cent of national election returns processed, Ms Roman had secured a win with 23,814 votes over her opponent's 10,325.

Meanwhile...

What we must not do, what we must never do, is turn on our neighbors, our family members, our fellow Americans for something that they cannot control and deny what makes them human. And this is why none of us can stand by when a state enters the business of legislating identity and insists that a person pretend to be something or someone that they are not. But no matter how isolated, no matter how afraid, and no matter how alone you may feel today, know this, that the Department of Justice and indeed the entire Obama administration want you to know that we see you, we stand with you, and we will do everything we can to protect you going forward. ― Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch's remarks at the May 9 press conference announcing the complaint against the State of North Carolina to stop discrimination against transgender individuals.  

I have high hopes that the ride through the dark tunnel will end soon and transgender people will be freed from those who try to suppress us.

Wearing Avon.

Lori Shannon on a 1975 episode of  television'  All in the Family.

Indiana

The so-called religious freedom law is more onerous to transgender folks than LGB folks because civilians are more likely to clock transgender folks than LGB folks (and then proceed to exercise their religious beliefs against us).

Put a transwoman, transman, gay man, lesbian woman, and bisexual bisexual in a line-up and who is your average civilian most likely to pick as belonging to the LGBT crowd? The transwoman and transman, of course.

More so than the folks in the LGB crowd, a lot of folks in the trans crowd will get clocked by civilians who are scrutinizing people to determine whether or not we are discrimination-worthy. Size is often our giveaway (big transwomen and small transmen) and there is not much we can do about that.

And stop calling it a "religious freedom" law. It's a freedom to discriminate law, that is, you are free to discriminate according to your prejudices and then use religion as an excuse. How twisted is that?

Tell me, Mr. Christian, if a transwoman needed some carpentry work done, what would Jesus do?

 

 

 

Wearing Kate Spade.

 

 

 

Actor John Lithgow in the 1992 film Raising Cain.

Scalia's Surprise: Women Don't Have Constitutional Protection Against Discrimination

UPDATED BELOW

WASHINGTON -- The equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution does not protect against discrimination on the basis of gender or sexual orientation, according to Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.

For the record, the 14th Amendment's equal protection clause states: "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." That would seem to include protection against exactly the kind of discrimination to which Scalia referred.

Read the rest of this shocking story in The Huffington Post.

UPDATE:  Scalia says the 14th Amendment protects only black citizens, not women. Oh, and a rich white kid named Bush

For another view on the matter, please read this piece by Joan Walsh from Salon.

Online, the censors are scoring big wins

Online, the censors are scoring big wins