Oklahoma’s Plan To Impeach Obama And Keep Transgender Kids Out Of Bathrooms
Some Oklahoma lawmakers want to throw transgender kids under the bus — and the Obama administration with them.
The post Oklahoma’s Plan To Impeach Obama And Keep Transgender Kids Out Of Bathrooms appeared first on ThinkProgress.
thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2016/05/20/3780350/oklahoma-anti-trans-legislation/
#AM_Equality Tip Sheet: May 20, 2016
#SHAME: GOP HOUSE LEADERS EMPLOY DEPLORABLE TACTICS TO PROMOTE DISCRIMINATION AGAINST LGBT AMERICANS: HRC blasted Republican House leadership for supporting anti-LGBT lawmakers seeking to invalidate President Obama’s Executive Order protecting LGBT Americans from discrimination yesterday. Leadership held open a floor vote longer than rules permit, using the time to flip seven Republican votes and kill an amendment from Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-NY) that would have ensured that funds from an appropriations bill couldn’t be used to discriminate against LGBT workers. Thirty-six Republicans initially voted for Maloney’s amendment, but seven reversed their votes on the floor, causing the amendment to fail by just one vote. House members chanted “shame” during the extended vote. This comes the day after a contentious House debate on a provision known as the Russell Amendment, which was included in the National Defense Authorization Act. The provision would allow for sweeping taxpayer-funded discrimination. Watch Rep. Maloney’s passionate speech on the House floor here.
GOP SENATORS ASK AG LYNCH FOR “REASONABLE SOLUTIONS” BUT OFFER NONE: Speaking of shameful, in a letter to U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch and U.S. Secretary of Education John King, more than two dozen Republican senators made clear their opinion of the recent guidance issued by the Departments of Education and Justice protecting transgender students from discrimination in public and federally-funded schools. Astoundingly, the letter, written by Senate Education Committee Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-TN) and Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA), opens with this line: “Every transgender person is someone’s child and should be treated with respect.” Promising start, but, trust us, it goes precipitously south from there. More from CNN.
TIME MAGAZINE FEATURES FIGHT FOR TRANSGENDER EQUALITY: TIME offers an in-depth account of how extremists have seized upon unfounded fears to perpetuate discrimination against transgender people. The article notes, “The 2016 battle over bathrooms is, after all, about far more than public facilities–it’s about gender roles, social change, federalism, physical danger, political polarization and, most strikingly, a breakdown in the ability of anyone in this country to speak across our divides, or appeal to common humanity.” The article ends with these sage words from Jayne Ellspermann, a high school principal in Florida: “I know we’ve made it through what happened previously, and I know we’ll make it through this historical change as well. The bottom line is that each student needs to feel secure and comfortable in the school that they’re going to attend.”
OKLAHOMA BECOMES LATEST STATE TO ATTACK TRANS YOUTH: Last night, Oklahoma lawmakers introduced an outrageous proposal that would force schools to make accommodations for students who purport to have religious objections to sharing a sex-segregated space with transgender students. Going a step further, the legislation also states that allowing students with religious objections to use a single-user facility is not an acceptable accommodation. To be clear, transgender young people are the ones being targeted. Legislators should be working to find solutions that ensure that they are safe and treated equally by their school, not stigmatized by the people elected to protect them.
SOUTH CAROLINA STALLS ON ANTI-TRANSGENDER BILL: The South Carolina State Senate is considering a vile, anti-transgender bill that would force transgender students in Berkeley County, SC, to use school facilities inconsistent with their gender identity. This bill is a response to recent news coverage of the Berkeley County School District’s practice of allowing transgender students the ability to use sex-segregated facilities consistent with their gender identity. The Senate has adjourned until Tuesday, when they will discuss bringing the measure to a final vote.
OUTRAGEOUS: ARCHDIOCESE REJECTS MARRIAGE PLAINTIFFS’ HEADSTONE DESIGN: Marriage equality plaintiffs Greg Bourke and Michael De Leon of Kentucky won at the U.S. Supreme Court, but are losing with the Catholic Archdiocese of Louisville. Their planned headstone design, which incorporates an image of the Supreme Court building, has been rejected by the archdiocese as inconsistent with church teachings. You can see it here. Bourke said that the action was “deliberate retaliation against my family,” and inconsistent with Pope Francis’ desires for the church. “Is that what Jesus would do?” he asked. Waiting for your answer, Archbishop Joseph E. Kurtz.
HRC MOURNS THE MURDER OF MERCEDES SUCCESSFUL: Mercedes Successful, a transgender woman of color from Haines City, FL., was found fatally shot Sunday in a local parking lot. Advocates are only now learning of her death because local press reports misgendered her and used her birth name. According to reports, Mercedes was a well-known performer in local clubs, and was the winner of the 2014 Gay Caribbean USA Pageant, where she represented her home country, Jamaica. More from HRC.
A VICTORY FOR SAME-SEX PARENTS IN THE SUNSHINE STATE: The Florida Department of Health is now printing birth certificates that include both same-sex parents and issuing amended birth certificates to same-sex couples who had a child during their marriage. The action comes after three couples and Equality Florida sued the department for the legal right to receive a certificate with both same-sex parents listed. Previously, the certificates read “mother unmarried, father unknown.” More from HRC.
GUARD WHO BOOTED TRANSGENDER WOMAN FROM RESTROOM CHARGED WITH ASSAULT: A security guard who kicked a transgender woman out of the women’s restroom at a Giant Food grocery store in Washington, D.C., has been charged with assault. The police report recorded the assault as a suspected hate crime. More from The Associated Press.
READING RAINBOW
BuzzFeed exposes anti-trans hoax stories going viral; Towleroad features South Africa’s first commercial with a same-sex kiss; First Post reports on importance of Tim Cook’s India trip to country’s LGBT community; A transgender athlete finds acceptance on a high school lacrosse team; PinkNews profiles a drag queen contemplating running for governor of Alabama; The Atlantic spotlights the terrible correlation between denied appropriate bathroom access and suicide rates among transgender people; The Wall Street Journal breaks down a new poll that finds the majority of older Americans now support marriage equality; The Jackson Free Press profiles Benjamin Morris, who is biking the length of the state of Mississippi in protest of the state’s new discriminatory HB1523 law; and 200 Ironman athletes are sprinting out of North Carolina because of HB2.
Have news? Send us your news and tips at [email protected]. Click here to subscribe to A.M. Equality and follow @HRC for all the latest news. Thanks for reading!
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HRC Marks 20th Anniversary of Historic Supreme Court Case Romer v. Evans
Today marks the 20th anniversary of Romer v. Evans, the landmark Supreme Court decision that laid the legal groundwork for some of our community’s biggest victories including US v. Windsor and Obergefell v. Hodges. In Romer, the Supreme Court determined that a Colorado anti-gay voter referendum violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution. Several Colorado municipalities had passed protections from discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in the employment, housing, healthcare and other basic services. In response, in 1992 Colorado voters adopted Amendment 2 to the Colorado Constitution, which precluded these protections and any judicial, legislative or executive action designed to protect LGB people from discrimination. The Court ruled found Amendment’s two blatant targeting of LGB people for discrimination to be a clear violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution.
In addition to strengthening the legal foundation for LGBT civil rights in the Constitution under the 14th amendment, Romer also sent a powerful message to lawmakers and courts that homophobia, or as the court described it a “bare… desire to harm a politically unpopular group,” can never be a legitimate state interest.
Over the past two decades we have made tremendous strides towards equality for LGBT people nationwide. President Obama has led the most pro-equality administration in history, implementing a myriad of federal protections in healthcare, employment and housing. Many states and cities across the country now provide local protections as well. However, we also mark this anniversary with the somber acknowledgement that there is much left undone. As we have seen in North Carolina over the past months there are powerful forces transforming “bare animus” into state sanctioned bullying. The decision in Romer is as powerful and as poignant today as it was in 1996 — in America laws can’t be made because of hate.
Oklahoma Lawmakers Introduce Vile Measure Attacking Transgender Youth
Today, HRC and Freedom Oklahoma, the state organization working to advance equality for LGBT Oklahomans, strongly condemned the introduction of a new anti-transgender bill in the Oklahoma State Legislature. The outrageous proposal would force schools to make accommodations for students who purport to have religious objections to sharing a sex-segregated space with transgender students. Going a step further, the legislation also strangely states that allowing students with religious objections to use a single-user facility is not an acceptable accommodation.
“To be clear, transgender young people are the ones being targeted. Legislators should be working to find solutions that ensure that they are safe and treated equally by their school, not stigmatized by the people elected to protect them,” said HRC Communications Director Jay Brown. “Like so many of the anti-transgender bills we’re seeing, this is a solution in search of a problem that does not exist. School districts across this country have had policies in place for more than a decade with no safety problems at all. This does nothing more than demean transgender students and undermine their dignity. If passed, Governor Fallin must veto this bill, which gambles with the lives and safety of young people.”
“In a time when our state is facing an unprecedented economic crisis, our lawmakers should be focused on righting the ship rather than stigmatizing transgender youth,” said Troy Stevenson, Executive Director of Freedom Oklahoma. “Using school children to distract from the legislative quagmire should outrage the senses of every fair-minded Oklahoman. Freedom Oklahoma is calling on legislators to abandon this legislation before it adds hundreds of millions of dollars to the already $1.3 billion budget shortfall, and if they don’t, we will see them in court.”
Despite claims to the contrary by anti-LGBT activists who have preyed on misinformation and ignorance, states with laws protecting transgender people’s access to public accommodations, including restrooms that accord with their gender identity, have seen no increase in public safety incidents. Cities and states throughout the country have rejected similar attacks on the transgender community. South Dakota Governor Dennis Daugaard vetoed legislation that limited restroom use for transgender children in public schools earlier this year, and the sponsor of a similar bill in Tennessee recently pulled the legislation from consideration. Additionally, after immense backlash, the City Council of Oxford, Ala. rescinded an anti-transgender ordinance that imposed jail time and a fine on violators of the law.
Targeting transgender youth in this way is especially dangerous. One academic study this year found that restricting restrooms for transgender teens correlates with a high suicide rate. Similarly, another study this year found that transgender youth who are allowed to express their gender identity have good mental health outcomes.
Further, bills justified by this type of rhetoric are simply incorrect on the facts. Eighteen states and the District of Columbia have laws on the books allowing transgender people non-discrimination protections in access to public accommodations and the ability to use the restroom that matches their gender identity, and more than 75 percent of Fortune 500 companies have adopted similar policies. Multiple fact checkers have found that there have been no recorded examples of public safety incidents stemming from these policies.
Oklahoma’s proposed law is also a violation of the Civil Rights Act. Last week, the U.S. Departments of Justice and Education issued guidance for school districts to ensure transgender students are treated with dignity in public and federally-funded schools, including having equal access to restrooms and locker rooms consistent with their gender identity. While this guidance is consistent with previous guidelines and enforcement by the Departments, the treatment of transgender students has become a national issue following the recent passage of the discriminatory HB2 law in North Carolina. Among its shameful provisions, HB2 prohibits public school students from using restrooms and other school facilities consistent with their gender identity.
For several years, the U.S. Departments of Education and Justice have been interpreting and enforcing Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 to prohibit discrimination on the basis of gender identity or sex stereotyping as unlawful sex discrimination. Additionally the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit recently upheld the Department of Education’s assertion that the nation’s civil rights laws protect transgender students from discrimination, including in the provision of bathrooms. There is no doubt that this bill is a blatant violation of Title IX and would not withstand a challenge in court.
Dr. Luke Relents, Kesha Cleared to Perform at Billboard Music Awards (Video)
www.advocate.com/music/2016/5/20/dr-luke-relents-kesha-cleared-perform-billboard-music-awards-video
Chelsea Manning Appeals Sentence: What Took So Long? (Video)
www.advocate.com/transgender/2016/5/20/chelsea-manning-appeals-sentence-what-took-so-long-video
Fireside #1
jessicajane9 posted a photo:
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Keeping warm during a break from the dance floor @ Pinks
Can The Gay Age Gap Be Bridged? Up-Coming Film ‘After Louie’ With Alan Cumming Says Yes.
Artist and AIDS activist Vincent Gagliostro is hoping to bridge the gay generation gap with his first narrative film, After Louie. Co-written by writer and actor, Anthony Johnston, the film “explores the contradictions of modern gay life and history through Sam (Alan Cumming), a man desperate to understand how he and his community got to where they are today.”
“As an AIDS activist and member of ACT UP in the 1980s and 90s, Sam witnessed the deaths of too many friends and lovers. Battle-wounded and struggling with survivor’s guilt, Sam now resents the complacency of his former comrades and derides what he sees as the younger generation’s indifference to the politics of sex, and of death.
An unexpected intimacy with a much younger man, Braeden (Zachary Booth), challenges Sam’s understanding of contemporary gay life. Through this unconventional romance, he is forced to deal with the trauma that so informs his past, their present, and an unknown future.”
The film “is a portrait of what happened to us — the generation who endured the AIDS epidemic, a generation whose shared history continues to haunt us,” Gagliostro says. “In confronting the end of a traumatic era and provoking a conversation between generations, I dare us to dream of a new and vibrant future, again.”
Gagliostro and Johnston have assembled an impressive cast. Wilson Cruz and New York cabaret legends Justin Vivian Bond and Joey Arias will appear alongside Cumming and Booth. And the film has been endorsed by no less an authority than Gay Men’s Health Crisis founder, activist and playwright Larry Kramer.
After Louie, which aims to go into production this summer, comes at time when the disconnect between gay men of different generations has been particularly contentious. The introduction of PrEP has lead some who fought and survived the height of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the 80s to criticize the younger generation’s embrace of the HIV prevention med.
As Kramer says, “This movie needs to be made.” You can help make that happen by visiting the film’s Kickstarter page and donating before the June 2 deadline.
Nobody Has Ever Loved a Chewbacca Mask More Than This Mom, Now a Viral Star: WATCH
Candace Payne bought a Chewbacca mask and decided to hit Facebook live to crow about her purchase. The video has been viewed more than 24 million times in 18 hours, and you’ll see why.
“I’d like to say that I bought this for my son that would really, really want it. And let’s be honest, he’ll probably confiscate it from me… He’ll probably take it from me. However, this is mine. At the end of the day, this is mine that I bought and I’m going to keep it for my own!”
Added Payne in the note accompanying her video: “It’s the simple joys in life….”
(h/t justjared)
The post Nobody Has Ever Loved a Chewbacca Mask More Than This Mom, Now a Viral Star: WATCH appeared first on Towleroad.
Oklahoma Lawmakers Want to Impeach Obama for Telling Schools Where Students Should Pee
Lawmakers in Oklahoma introduced two pieces of legislation yesterday regarding transgender bathroom laws, KTUL reports:
On Thursday, two pieces of legislation were filed. Senate Bill 1619, filed by President pro tempore of the Senate Brian Bingman and Speaker of the House Jeff Hickman, calls for a law that would make student restrooms exclusively for the gender the student was born.
Senate Concurrent Resolution 43, filed by Senate Anthony Sykes (above left) and sponsored by Rep. John Bennett (above right), calls for the U.S. House of Representatives to issue articles of impeachment against President Obama for the bathroom directive.
Said Bennett: “This directive to schools is not only unlawful, but the breadth of overreach in this instance by the Obama Administration is shocking. We are working on legislation that would protect our citizens by not requiring our kids and women to share a facility with anyone who ‘identifies’ as a gender that they were not born. We are going to do everything we can to protect our women and children.”
Resolution 43 calls for the U.S. House to “file articles of impeachment against the President of the United States, the Attorney General of the United States, the Secretary of Education and any other federal official liable to impeachment who has exceeded his or her constitutional authority.”
You can read the bills below:
The post Oklahoma Lawmakers Want to Impeach Obama for Telling Schools Where Students Should Pee appeared first on Towleroad.
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