Watching the premiere, national transgender civil rights organization flounder would be heart wrenching if it weren’t more devastating. We’re at a time when tactics and strategy need changing to reflect a changing situation, but it appears these won’t be.
What changed are the party presidential administrations; what’s happening is the likelihood that administration regulations and decisions that favor transgender people are likely to be reversed by the nationalistic, reactionary, hyper-conservative nominees that are likely going to be appointed to the executive agencies by the Donald Trump administration in charge of those regulations.
The National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE) was so surprised and caught off guard by Sec. Hillary Clinton not winning the presidential election that they aren’t prepared for how to respond to the Trump administration’s cabinet nominees. As if to highlight this, National Center for Transgender Equality’s Harper Jean Tobin told The Atlantic recently, “Unfortunately, the president-elect’s nominee for secretary of education and other members of his leadership team have shown an indifference or hostility to civil rights enforcement in general, and hostility to certain communities in particular, including LGBT communities …”
The latest e-blast from NCTE of Friday, Dec. 2, is an example of this shows timidity, and a lack of new ideas for a new environment. They are asking transgender people and allies to engage in a likely ineffective email writing campaign to their senators to oppose the nomination of Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions to attorney general. I’m a Californian who plugged in a California zip code into their email letter generator. In their sample letter, NCTE suggested telling my Democratic senators:
“As a constituent who cares about equality and justice, I am asking you to oppose the nomination of Sen. Jeff Sessions for attorney general. The job of the attorney general is to ensure the fair and impartial administration of justice to all people. Sessions has a long history of opposing and obstructing civil rights laws, minimizing sexual assault, sharing his racist beliefs and demonizing people based on who they are, who they love, how they worship or where they were born. This record raises grave questions about his temperament and commitment to fairness, equality and the rule of law.”
NCTE does not ask its Californian members to be bold in mentioning about transgender civil rights. It’s not boldly asking senators to filibuster the nominee either.
NCTE, as transgender community civil rights leadership, appears it knew how to ask for civil rights of a friendly presidential administration, but doesn’t know how to demand civil rights in a hostile environment. What they’ve been doing and will no longer work on their own are press releases, letter writing campaigns and lobbying.
What did the leaders of the black civil rights movement do to change the situation in the 1960s, the women’s movement of the 1970s, the gay liberation movement of the 1980s, the disabilities movement of the 1980s and 1990s?
Learning from previous civil rights movements means demanding ordinary equality and civil rights.
The NCTE itself will release a survey that will come out in three days that will show the statistics of how the transgender community is oppressed. Demanding is what must be done to achieve civil rights and ordinary equality, free of harassment and discrimination based on gender identity.
Demanding means impact litigation, which is the model of the ACLU and Transgender Legal Defense & Education Fund. But for the NCTE, the model would need to change to one of previous civil rights movements: the King philosophies of the Six Steps of Nonviolent Social Change combined with the Six Principles of Nonviolence. These include discussion with “enemies” and direct action where discrimination occurs – in our case schools and bathrooms.
Will our leaders at NCTE lead or fail? Currently, I don’t see leadership.
This is laughable as usual Sandeen has no clue what Donald Trump actually stands for, I doubt Sandeen has ever heard any full, uncut interview with Trump.
As for Sessions, nobody including Sandeen have provided actual proof why they believe is the LGBT hating monster they say he is.
Liz
The future is impossible to predict. The best we can do is look at the past as a guide to future behavior.
Let see what turns up:
1 Sessions led Young Republicans while in college.
2 His religious identity is clear as he teaches Sunday school
3 As Alabama Attorney General he refused to prosecute two KKK men who murdered of Albert Turner, who was black.
4. According to Thomas Figures, an aide of his he said that he thought the KKK was okay until he found out that they smoked pot.
5 Called Figures, a black man, “boy”.
6 Called a white civil rights attorney “a disgrace to his race”
7 Attempted to stop a GSA conference stating “Homosexuals and lesbians” promote “illegal, sexually deviant activities”. His decision was overturned by a federal court on first amendment grounds.
8 Criticized the National Endowment for the Humanities for distributing books related to Islam to libraries. He had no problem distributing Christian material.
9. As senator he voted for the Federal Marriage Amendment, which would amend the constitution to permanently define marriage as being between a man and a woman.
10 Voted against Matthew Shepard Act which added bias-motivated violence based on sexual orientation and gender identity to federal hate-crimes law.
11 Voted against repeal of “Don’t ask don’t tell”
12 Said that anyone gay was disqualified from becoming a Supreme Court Justice
13 Described marijuana as “dangerous, you cannot play with it, it is not funny, it’s not something to laugh about.” This tells me that he will take a very anti-pot stance when enforcing federal drug laws.
14 Voted to ban EPA from monitoring greenhouse gasses.
15 Sessions’s largest donors have come from the legal, health, real estate, and insurance industries
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Sessions
16 Claims that he filed “20 or 30” desegregation lawsuits as Alabama Attorney General. Atlantic magazine could find no evidence of any such lawsuits As matters of public record there should be evidence. that sounds like lies to me.
Source https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/12/which-schools-did-jeff-sessions-desegregate/509867/
Is this enough? There are plenty of other anti-LGBT, racial bigotry, and anti Muslim examples.
Wikipedia posts are made by consensus not necessarily fact, they have been in trouble in the past for posting non-factual information. Scientific facts, that’s one thing. Political figures Wikipedia has a clear bias to favor the left.
I don’t Sessions having a major impact on civil rights issues. The LGB, especially the T get their underwear in a wad every time someone whom is not on their “approved list” gets into office. With any luck Sessions will bring Hillary to trial and justice will be served for mishandling of classified material. A crime for which you and I would go to jail for quite some time, had we mishandled said material like she has.
Thank You John Pedista for leaving your email password sat to Password.
You made the job of hacking your email account so much easier, and no it was not the Russians, it was someone in the US Intelligence Community.
Liz