I remember how tough it was for me to change my documented gender in the Defense Enrollment Eligibility Reporting System (DEERS) as a military retiree in 2013. It was incredibly tough and onerous: I needed six separate pieces of documentation, to include proof of surgery. Most of the documents the Department of Defense (DoD) required…
It seems everywhere I look, mainstream, LGBT and conservative Christian journalists are reporting about, and opining on the Orlando mass murder at Pulse, as well as lawmakers saying things and taking votes. If we’re going to talk in terms of groups of people, instead of us as individuals, for a moment, we all see random,…
Recent discussions about basic freedoms for transgender people in public life, however the discussion has been framed, have generally been missing the contending theorizations of what we’re really discussing. The assertion by transgender people is “We exist.” The assertion by the public antagonists of transgender people is “You don’t exist: you rebel against God given…
Is Secretary Clinton giving the trans community the one finger salute? Well, it seems like it to me. Before I start here, don’t get me wrong, I’m not a #BernieOrBust gal. If Secretary Hillary Clinton is the Democratic candidate for president this November, she has my vote. And, I vote. But, I want to know…
“Let me also speak directly to the transgender community itself,” Attorney General Loretta Lynch said in a May 9 news conference announcing a lawsuit against North Carolina over the provisions of HB 2: specifically the provisions that require transgender people in public agencies, schools and rest stops to use the bathrooms consistent with their sex…
“A person’s sex (male or female) is an immutable biological reality. In the vast majority of people (including those who later identify as ‘transgender’), it is unambiguously identifiable at birth. There is no rational or compassionate reason to affirm a distorted psychological self-concept that one’s ‘gender identity’ is different from one’s biological sex. “Neither lawmakers…
The anti-discrimination complications of North Carolina’s HB 2 are many, but probably one of the lesser known ones is that HB 2, which limits transgender people’s use of restrooms in state buildings to the gender listed on their birth certificates, is in direct conflict with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) interpretation of Title VII….
Recently, I wrote about what hasn’t changed with the messaging that the social conservatives, usually on the religious right, have used in their efforts to deny public accommodation protections for transgender people. But what’s happened in the last few years is we have a multitude of bills and initiatives seeking solutions for public bathroom predation…
The Lambda Literary Foundation (LLF) appears to want to repeat history over a publicly painful 2004 book nomination that, after about five weeks, was withdrawn. Feb. 2, 2004, J. Michael Bailey’s The Man Who Would Be Queen was nominated for a Lambda Literary Award – a Lammy – in the Transgender/Genderqueer category. The selection was…
This is the transcript of a radio spot that ran in a campaign against SB 200, a Colorado civil rights law that Gov. Ritter signed into law May 29, 2008. The spot began running Wednesday, May 21, 2008. Girl 1: “Mom!” Narrator: If the Colorado Legislature has its way a … G1: “A man in…
