It was Nov.19, and what was constructed to be the first annual Tea Party took place at the Sunset Theater in Normal Heights. It was a T-Party for transgender community members, family and friends and allies of the community rolled out by T-Spot (thetspot.org). The theme was Alice In Wonderland, with playing card cut-outs as…
Sept. 5, Equality California, joined by the GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders (GLAD) and the National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR), filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the Central District of California challenging the Trump administration’s transgender military ban, Stockman v. Trump. It was the fourth lawsuit filed over the ban. Nov. 6,…
Friday, Oct. 6, Attorney General Jeff Sessions issued a memorandum entitled “Federal Law Protections for Religious Liberty.” The document is an official, federal argument for exercising religion in the marketplace, in the public square and in interacting with the federal government. For example, Principle 2 of the memorandum states, “The free exercise of religion includes…
This is my third column where I’m writing about things ex-transgender. In one column I explored a San Diego church’s mini-conference on transgender people (especially transgender family members), and in another column I reviewed a DVD of a reparative therapist talking about gender dysphoria. In this third column I’m reviewing the documentary TranZformed: Finding Your…
What Do You Do When Your Child Tells You They Are Transgendered was the name of the keynote address at the Hope Gathering, 2012, given by Dr. Marc Dillworth. He’s a marriage and family counselor and self-identified Christian who specializes in reparative (also known as conversion) therapy for gender dysphoria; his keynote address was given…
Aug. 19 I went to a Rock Church, Point Loma conference entitled Transgenderism: A Faith Based Perspective. Denise Shick of Help 4 Families, whose father was both transgender and a child abuser, gave the presentation on how she believes fundamentalist Christian churches should respond to transgender people. As the name of Shick’s small organization implies,…
When a group says it wants to go mainstream, the group needs to worry about their optics and messaging. If a group wants to take part in peaceful assembly and engage in public discourse, then peaceful means they use to disseminate their ideas must match the peaceful ends they seek. The group self-identified as the…
“I say to you today, my friends, that in spite of the difficulties and frustrations of the moment, I still have a dream.” We’ve pretty much all heard that quote from Martin Luther King Jr’s speech I Have a Dream. King had a dream of freedom and equality for black Americans; he dreamed “that one…
On the Saturday of San Diego’s Pride weekend, there was a protest of about 50 people at noon, at Sixth and Upas, organized by the San Diego Chapter of No Justice, No Pride. I spoke to Adrian Scott (pronouns: they, them, theirs), a protest organizer, and Adam Powers (pronouns: she, her, hers), a protest participant,…
There are many transgender specific conferences every year with different focuses, such as the Black Trans Advocacy Conference in Dallas, Texas, Transgender Lives: The Intersection of Health and Law Conference in Farmington, Conn., and the Philadelphia Trans-Health Conference in Philadelphia, Pa. Although conferences often begin serving just one niche, these often grow to over more…
