A week ago Monday, (Oct. 20) the Palm Center, SPARTA and the ACLU convened a conference to discuss open transgender military service in the United States. In the largest gathering of its kind, transgender military personnel from 18 countries that allow open military service for transgender servicemembers attended the conference to discuss that issue. With…
My vocabulary expands frequently. One word I learned from some trans hackers recently was “dox.” It’s a verb that originates from the word “document.” and means “to search for and publish private or identifying information about (a particular individual) on the Internet.” Often it’s done maliciously; sometimes it’s done as reciprocation to someone who has…
Is it the place of school districts across the country to reinforce western societal gender norms? The National Review posted a story Oct. 8 on the Lincoln, Nebraska School District (referred to as Lincoln Public Schools and abbreviated LPS) headlined “School told to call kids ‘purple penguins’ because ‘boys and girls’ is not inclusive to…
Monday, Oct. 6, the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) did not take up the marriage equality appeals of five states, so the federal Courts of Appeal rulings for those five states (as well as another six states in the Appeals’ Court Districts covered by those first five states) have, or will in short…
The first California specific LGBT issue bill I ever lobbied for was 2006’s Justice for Gwen Araujo Act (AB 1170). The “What This Bill Will Do” section of Equality California’s fact sheet stated, “In order to dissuade the use of appeals to prejudice and bias in an attempt to gain acquittal, a favorable plea or…
Kryptonite crystal While walking back to a car parked in a large Veterans Health Administration (VHA) medical center parking lot, I felt tears welling in my eyes. There were duck ponds with their ducks that I was quickly walking by – even a pseudo-rustic bridge over a connective feature between two larger ponds, but I…
Sonja Dalton, writing for Americans For Truth About Homosexuality, once stated “‘Real women’ have two X chromosomes, and they do not have a male sex organ.” This is in line with the current Christian fundamentalist belief that there are only males and females. The scripture most often cited to validate this position is Genesis 1:27:…
I’ve been having a lot of issues with my mobile phone provider during the last few months, and I’m not sure why these latest issues with the company occurred. It feels either sexist or transphobic, but my guess it’s a process that has the unintentional problem of appearing discriminatory. It began with a phone billing…
I had a friend of mine once tell me that self-care is a key to work one does in one’s life, whether the worker’s work is the kind of work that brings home the bacon so the worker could fry it up in a pan (from the words of a 1970s commercial for the perfume…
I’ve been reminded this past week about what I love and what I find discomforting living out in my community. This past week I went to FilmOut’s screening of Lady Valor, a CNN documentary on Kristin Beck’s life since coming out. I noticed relationships. I saw some of her experiences with her family of origin…
