‘Pride Month 2020 – How Did We Do?’

(3 Jul 2020)

(2019 06 09) Slimand Me (Thassos -February 1973) 50091091_2252905174984063_633501676090687488_n *

This was a work-in-progress begun 30 Jun 2020 before 10am. Thank you for checking back later for this completed composition.

My apologies. I shall be adding images during a future Edit.

We LGBT come to the conclusion of another Pride Month.

How did we do this year?

People of Our Community – whomever we are, however we are – repeatedly blathered to me that there are no Drumpfian and Deplorable Right-wing Republi-con and Christian Con-servative Trans people.

No?

I began making screen-prints of Posts and Comments by people who claim to be Trans and assert Drumpfian ideology.

I’ve collected several so far.

Sadly, some are among my Facebook Friends list. Obviously, they don’t get the clue.

Trans people who are Drumpfian, Deplorable, or Republi-con remain active and in full force.

They are apologetic about Drumpf. Nothing is ever Drumpf’s fault. Events swirl around him.

They blame Democrats for his political agenda.

They blame his Cabinet for his decisions.

They vow to again vote for Drumpf and more Republi-cons in the Election.

They are insanity defined.

What are TERFs? Why are TERFs dangerous?

(https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/terf-why-dangerous-transgender-community-170407616.html)

My first experience with TERFs came during the 1970s and the 1980s – probably long before that became a term. I would learn the definition of TERF firsthand while I was campaigning with NOW for the ERA.

I began my adult M-F Transition in 1974 (age 18). I wanted to help pass the ERA. I became active as my ‘before’ – Nick / male. I joined NOW presenting as Nick / male when I was also Female part-time during my Transition. I was reluctant to out myself til I knew where I stood with other NOW members. I had to test their waters, I had to test whether I would be safe amongst NOW members if I shared that I am Transsexual, whether this could be an opportunity to present Female amongst NOW. I carefully observed the other members if it would be safe to out myself amongst them.

I learned exactly where I stood amongst NOW.

Their answer was a resounding ‘NO!’. Not a chance!

Members of NOW during those years where I was a member were clearly anti-Transsexual, were what I now identify as TERF, were hard-core TERFs, though perhaps that term had not yet been devised four decades ago.

They were also totally misandronist – they held a hatred against men, including men who supported Feminist causes, who campaigned with them at Feminist rallies. As they did to me. My last straw was when NOW refused to allow me to participate in a post-campaign celebration party. They did so for only one reason – that I was, to them, a man.

I considered my options that evening:

– Show my driver’s licence to someone in charge. My ID was Sharon / Female. How could they refuse me when I AM Female!

– Go home, change into more Female attire than what I was wearing – unisex Female attire as it was. Maybe add a touch of make-up. Maybe fix my hair a bit Femme. Then return to the venue, show my ID, and request admission.

Nope.

I went home, alright. I never returned to attend another NOW meeting or event.

My years of activism as a NOW member no longer was enough.

So I had enough of NOW.

But I do ponder the thought. What would have happened if I stayed and showed my Sharon / Female driver’s licence while presenting Nick / Male?

Allow me to present this carry forward news article from May about someone from my 1970s era. Steve’s employer fired him for his transition, despite being named Teacher of the Year.

(https://www.ebar.com/news/latest_news//292479?)

News » Latest News

Online Extra: Emeryville street to be named for fired trans gym teacher

by John Ferrannini

Assistant Editor

Wednesday May 20, 2020

A year after the Emery school board declined to name a high school gym in honor of a trans former teacher, the Emeryville City Council decided to recognize the late instructor in another way.

The Emeryville City Council voted Tuesday to change the name of a street in front of Emery High School after Steve Dain, a trans teacher who was fired in 1976 after receiving gender confirmation surgery.

Last year’s brouhaha saw the resignation of the school board president, though she maintained it was not related to the naming issue.

According to the Emeryville Tattler, the council voted unanimously May 19 to name the block of 47th Street between San Pablo Avenue and Doyle Street after Dain, who taught gym at Emery High between 1966 and 1976.

Emeryville Mayor Christian Patz attributed the school district board’s 2019 decision to bigotry and in a May 20 statement to the Bay Area Reporter said “I take pride in the (city) council’s decision.”

“My intent is to celebrate Mr. Dain’s life and accomplishments. He was a success as a teacher, in court against discrimination, and as a mentor and role model,” Patz wrote in the email. “He did not focus on the school district’s closed-mindedness but used it to find bigger venues for what he had to offer the world. The city of Emeryville is following his lead, once again the bigotry of the Emery School Board led to the city’s decision to provide a signpost for residents, neighbors, and students at school.

“Steve Dain Drive says: be who you are, the city of Emeryville will not just accept you but celebrate your accomplishments,” he added.

As the B.A.R. previously reported, Dain, a former teacher of the year, was terminated after returning from gender confirmation surgery at Stanford Medical Center in 1975.

He filed a lawsuit, a copy of which was obtained by the B.A.R. and reads as a sign of the more transphobic times in which it took place: Dain attempted to keep his medical records sealed and private, but the court subpoenaed and read them during the proceedings. Dain’s attorney gendered him as male in all filings, while the respondent’s description of the petitioner ranged widely, defaulting to “he/she” in many places.

Dain won the lawsuit and was awarded around $19,000, as well as the cost of the suit and attorneys fees, but was unable to return to teaching. He completed a doctor of naturopathy degree in 2006, according to an obituary in the East Bay Times, but died the following year at age 68.

Last year, Dain was nominated to be the namesake of the Emery High School gymnasium and sports complex. Patz, then the vice mayor, thought at the time that renaming the gym for him would help right the school district’s wrong in terminating his employment.

“It’s an opportunity for visibility and inclusion,” said Patz, a straight ally, contemporaneously told the B.A.R. “For the next 10 or 15 years, when people look at this building and ask who was Steve Dain, we can tell the story.”

However at a school board meeting June 26 — the Wednesday before Pride was celebrated in San Francisco and many other major cities — the school board decided not to name the gym for Dain during what the B.A.R. referred to as an emotional and tense meeting.

“Steve Dain was the best candidate until other people came to the table,” then-school board vice president Brynnda Collins said during the meeting. “But the nomination for Steve Dain is political. We don’t want to make history or the newspapers by naming our gym. We want to make history with our test scores. The person this gym is named after needs to be a pillar of the community. It’s about community, not politics.”

“That’s transphobia right there,” Patz, who was in the audience, responded.

The school board decided to name the gym for 38-year Emery High School gym teacher and coach Elio Abrami, who died in 2018.

Then-school board president Barbara Inch, who is married to Patz, said that “the vote disappointed me more deeply than I expected.” She resigned as president two days later. (Collins is now the school board’s president.)

According to John Bauters, a gay man who serves as the lone LGBT member of the Emeryville City Council, Patz was instrumental in reviving efforts to honor Dain.

“Mayor Patz had the foresight to put together a small ad hoc committee of he and I to discuss ways to recognize people in our city,

(https://time.com/5598363/stonewall-beginnings-history/)

HISTORY CIVIL RIGHTS

EVEN PEOPLE WHO WERE THERE STILL DON’T AGREE ON HOW STONEWALL STARTED. HERE’S WHAT WE DO KNOW

BY OLVIA B. WAXMAN | VIDEO BY JOEY LAUTRUP

MAY 31, 2019 6:17 PM EDT

Alot has changed for LGBTQ Americans in the 50 years since June 28, 1969, when an uprising in response to a police raid at the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in Manhattan’s West Village neighborhood, kicked off a new chapter of grassroots activism. The U.S. Supreme Court has struck down state bans on same-sex marriage; the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy has come and gone; one of the candidates for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination is gay.

But one thing that has changed surprisingly little is the narrative about what exactly happened that night. In half a century, we haven’t gained any new major information about how Stonewall started, and even experts and eyewitnesses remain unsure how exactly things turned violent.

“We have, since 1969, been trading the same few tales about the riots from the same few accounts — trading them for so long that they have transmogrified into simplistic myth,” Martin Duberman writes in the new preface for the 2019 re-release of his 1994 book Stonewall, widely considered to be the definitive account of Stonewall and the events that followed.

“In terms of what happened that night, it really depends on who you talk to, and that includes the people who were actually there,” Duberman, now 88, told TIME on a recent visit to his Manhattan apartment. “They often have very different takes on what went down.”

In 1969, police raids at Stonewall were common, says Duberman, who was not there on the night of the raid but was closely involved in the organizing that followed. Officers would throw people against the wall and make sure they were wearing three pieces of clothing that were appropriate to their biological sex, per New York State law at the time. But nobody really knows why the police showed up that specific date, not long after midnight in the wee hours of Saturday morning on June 28; one theory, Duberman says, is that the bar owners failed to pay off the police. “It’s one of those apparent accidents of history,” says Duberman.

It’s also unclear how exactly that particular police raid turned violent, or why that was the night when, rather than being cowed, the patrons responded with resistance.

Some eyewitnesses to whom Duberman has spoken say that “a lesbian actually began the rioting by striking out at a policeman who was mauling her,” he says, but no such woman has ever come forward to say that was her. Some say the incident may have turned violent when a trans person hit a policeman, and some think that one of those people, at least, was Tammy Novak, who fought back when a policeman tried to push her into a police van, according to an account Duberman heard from Sylvia Rivera, a pioneering transgender activist whom the city announced on May 29 will be honored with a monument near the Stonewall Inn.

Part of the reason for the confusion is that there are very few photographs of the uprising in progress, even though the nearby Village Voice extensively covered the five nights of riots that followed. Craig Rodwell, owner of a bookstore that specialized in books about gay and lesbian culture, was taking pictures but they didn’t come out. The news photos that often accompany stories about Stonewall may not even come from the day of the uprising.

Despite the lack of clarity on how the Stonewall riots started, there is a deeper answer to why the uprising happened — and that side of the story is quite clear.

At the time of Stonewall, in 1969, many different counter-cultural movements were underway already.

“I think you need to know the whole context of the 1960s, and just how much rebellion was going on throughout the culture,” says Duberman. “The birth of the feminist movement, the black struggle for Civil Rights, Martin Luther King, Jr.’s assassination — it was an extremely volatile decade. We began to think, well, black people have been long defined as inferior. But now they’re saying black is beautiful. We, gay people, have long been defined as inferior. Maybe it’s time we started to say, ‘Gay is beautiful.’”

Within weeks after Stonewall, LGBTQ people who had been active in other movements, or in the typically quieter forms of LGBTQ activism that predated Stonewall by decades, came together to start “a whole new gay movement” in the U.S., as Duberman puts it. This was a grassroots political protest movement that could organize more openly than its predecessors. This phase of the story Duberman knows personally: after spending years attempting to change his sexuality, he “turned on instantly to the new message” and joined the Gay Liberation Front.

(https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2020/06/black-transgender-woman-brutally-beaten-crowd-men-store/)

Black transgender woman brutally beaten by a crowd of men in a store

In the middle of protests to honor black lives, the crowd called her a “fa***t” and started to beat her.

By Alex Bollinger Wednesday, June 3, 2020

A black transgender woman was beaten by a crowd of men, according to early reports on social media.

The victim has been identified as Iyanna Dior, and people posting a video of the attack to Twitter say that the aggression occurred this past Monday.

The video, which does not show what led up to the attack, shows a woman being beaten by at least a dozen men at a store. She is pushed out of the store by the crowd but worked her way back in and hid behind the cashier’s counter.

“You gotta come out,” someone in the crowd yelled. Then a man went behind the counter and pulled her out.

At least one person referred to Dior with “fa***t ass” in the chaotic video that has been viewed 1.8 million times so far.

Remember that as we are fighting to abolish police we are fighting to abolish gender policing!

Jameela Jamil

@jameelajamil

Iyanna Dior is a young black transwoman who was beaten up by a huge crowd of men. In the middle of a protest for black lives. Black lives still matter when you’re trans. Its the start of Pride. We need to do better. We see you and stand with you Iyanna. #BLACKTRANSLIVESMATTER

View image on Twitter

20.4K

6:50 PM – Jun 2, 2020

Others shared her ID on Cash App ($NajaBabiie) so that people can help her with medical bills and other expenses.

Drebae💎

@Drebae_

· 18h

We must have a conversation about HOMOPHOBIA & TRANSPHOBIA in the black community.

LGBT people are dying at alarming rates because of people standing by not doing anything. Trans women especially. This video is SAD https://twitter.com/hopedisguised/status/1267926952075309057 …

HopeGiselle

@HopeDisguised

Iyanna Dior a black trans woman was beaten yesterday by a crowd of over 30 people over a fender bender. Black men I don’t have it in me to write a long post cishet Black women i don’t have it In me to reprimand you all either. DO BETTER #allblacklivesmatter

Embedded video

Drebae💎

@Drebae_

If you guys want to help a black trans woman who was brutally

attacked by a mob of men pay for medical bills her cashapp is $NajaBabiie #IyannaDior

View image on Twitter

6:23 PM – Jun 2, 2020

This is a timeline of the AIDS crisis and Reagan’s response:

(https://www.factlv.org/timeline.htm)

(7 Jun 2020):

And can we please stop lauding the idea that Ronald Reagan was a good President?

He was not empathetic – his refusal to intervene in the early years of the AIDS pandemic, he did even say the word publicly until September 1985 which was over two years after the CDC began issuing alerts and information about AIDS.

It is no fluke that this was after his re-election. Reagan said the word in response to a reporter’s question.

By 1986, thousands of people, primarily men who had sex with men, had already died from AIDS-related illnesses.

The fact that gay men were the primary victims of this disease was the number one reason why Reagan refused to intervene in the pandemic.

Reagan mismanaged, through willful ignorance, the early years of a pandemic that would kill over 425,000 people in the U.S and 6,000,000 people worldwide by 1997.

When we rightfully hold Trump accountable for dragging his feet in the early stages of the Covid-19 pandemic, remember: Reagan dragged his feet for 4 years after the CDC, in 1982, recognized the mysterious deaths of gay men from rare diseases to a blood-born illness later called AIDS; 4 years after the AIDS-focused organization Gay Men’s Health Crisis was founded – and Reagan did this because it was killing gay men.

Reagan committed a crime of humanity as President.

And spare me the talk about his economy – anyone can turbocharge the economy by cutting the capital gains tax from 72% to 27%.

Reagan was a cold blooded murderer and, due to the fact that he did not intervene until 1986 under pressure from movements like ACT UP!, the death of millions are on his head.

Reagan apologized for his negligence in 1990, but all is not forgiven. Please remember this next time you want to throw an 80s themed party.

Peace.

()

Beyoncea Black

(8 Jun 2020):

🏳️‍🌈 Lucy Hicks Anderson (1886 – 1954) was assigned male at birth but was adamant that she was a girl from a very early age. Luckily for Lucy, her parents and doctors fully supported her gender transition by the time she started school. Her early life was spent happily. She got married and became a renowned chef, preparing dinner parties for the area’s elite. After divorcing her husband, she made a living operating a brothel where she also sold liquor during prohibition. She was able to get away with these illegal activities thanks to her reputation as a socialite. In fact, the one time she was arrested for selling liquor, a friend bailed her out because he needed her help with a dinner party he was hosting that very evening. In 1944, she married her second husband, a soldier named Reuben Anderson. The next year, trouble began when a sailor visited her brothel and contracted an STI, leading to an outbreak in the US Navy.

Lucy and all the women working in the brothel were legally required to undergo a medical examination. The exam revealed that Lucy was a transgender woman, and since this was an era where trans people could not have their gender legally recognized, she was charged with perjury for registering as female on her marriage license and put on trial. Her most famous quote comes from that trial: “I defy any doctor in the world to prove that I am not a woman.” She was found guilty and sentenced to ten years probation.

The federal government was not satisfied with probation and, because they no longer recognized the validity of the Andersons’ marriage, sent both Lucy and Reuben to prison for Lucy having “fraudulently” collected money allotted to soldiers’ wives. While in prison, Lucy was forced to wear male clothes. After their release, the couple moved to Los Angeles where they lived happily until Lucy’s death. Today, Lucy is regarded as one of the earliest known African American transgender people.

Celebrate Lucy Hicks Anderson.

And celebrate Reuben, too. We love an ally.

#Pride #BlackLivesMatter #BlackTransLivesMatter

(In an effort to both celebrate Pride and support the Black LGBTQ community, I am sharing the story of one Black LGBTQ icon each day during the month of June.) Thank you Eric Folkmire!

(https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/08/business/hospitals-bailouts-ceo-pay.html)

Hospitals Got Bailouts and Furloughed Thousands While Paying C.E.O.s Millions

Dozens of top recipients of government aid have laid off, furloughed or cut the pay of tens of thousands of employees.

HCA Healthcare, based in Nashville, received about $1 billion in federal bailout funds, part of an effort to stabilize hospitals during the pandemic.

By Jessica Silver-Greenberg, Jesse Drucker and David Enrich

June 8, 2020, 3:00 a.m. ET

HCA Healthcare is one of the world’s wealthiest hospital chains. It earned more than $7 billion in profits over the past two years. It is worth $36 billion. It paid its chief executive $26 million in 2019.

But as the coronavirus swept the country, employees at HCA repeatedly complained that the company was not providing adequate protective gear to nurses, medical technicians and cleaning staff. Last month, HCA executives warned that they would lay off thousands of nurses if they didn’t agree to wage freezes and other concessions.

A few weeks earlier, HCA had received about $1 billion in bailout funds from the federal government, part of an effort to stabilize hospitals during the pandemic.

HCA is among a long list of deep-pocketed health care companies that have received billions of dollars in taxpayer funds but are laying off or cutting the pay of tens of thousands of doctors, nurses and lower-paid workers. Many have continued to pay their top executives millions, although some executives have taken modest pay cuts.

(https://www.facebook.com/100002693720104/posts/2607484169351348/)

Callie Amber Foxx

(8 Jun 2020):

The following is shared from and written by my good fried Marissa McCool, and I agree with her statement 100%. Please read and then comment. Thanks.

“I want to help some people understand what people are actually advocating for when they’re talking about defunding or abolishing police. I don’t take credit for these ideas. This is only based on what I’ve been reading for the last few weeks from reliable sources, and getting irritated at all the people saying that it won’t work before it’s ever even happened. These are not just anarchist wet dreams here.

The idea is to dismantle the current structure of law enforcement that is rooted and protected by white supremacy.

It does not mean an end to laws or law enforcement.

It means an end to for-profit prisons. The end of the school-to-prison pipeline.

It means putting resources in place to support housing, food, community needs, instead of having homeless people be constantly harassed by police and every now and then having all their belongings stolen because.

It means an end to state-sponsored looting known as civil forfeiture.

It’s about abolishing the current system and finding a more supportive, empathetic, efficient, and less violent system to better support everyone, not just white people afraid of a black family having a barbecue.

An end to one mistake making you a felon, making it impossible for you to get hired, get housing, vote, or live anywhere by any means, and then putting you right back in prison for even failing to “call in.”

One of the ideas is ending the concept of the police being “social workers with guns.” The idea that police are given the responses to so many things that they end up having to be social workers who are armed, and as we’ve seen, they’re not trained at or good at that at all. What would this mean in replacement?

It would mean fire service or EMTs responding to overdoses. An end to the war on drugs that punishes people instead of rehabilitation and support.

It would mean mental health workers responding to mental health crises and wellness checks.

It would mean advocates and counselors for sexual assault victims.

It would mean an end to police stings on sex workers.

All of the above, things that police shouldn’t be in charge of handling anyway, considering how little training they have in their primary job, never mind social work.

Please stop treating this like it’s just some people throwing a fit and replacing it with nothing. There’s a reason the Minneapolis city council is committed to ending this, and it’s not because they’re whiny anarchists. Because for too long, the system has been designed to target black people, immigrants, and people of color for the sake of giving white people comfort.

And because of that, many people who have never had to fear the police the way black people do, for being stalked, harassed, sexually assaulted, molested, raped, killed, and otherwise terrorized with little to no responsibility taken or repercussions given. Reforms have been promised for decades, and they have not changed the system. So Minneapolis is looking to change the system, and if you think they haven’t been effective at getting this started, consider how many city systems have already ended their ties with Minneapolis police.

Read from the advocates and those doing the work before immediately dismissing the idea from its tag line.”

Join the secret ‘Trump Army’:

()

Laurence Overmire

(8 Jun 2020):

The dangerous and violent mindsets of Trump’s base…

—-

“A terrifying new website recently opened up: ArmyForTrump.com

The website is recruiting “soldiers” to “enlist” and “fight” in the “Trump Army” in “the front lines” of the 2020 election war.

This is a website paid for and approved by the Donald J. Trump for President Campaign.

In big, bold, all-capital letters, at the center-top and front of the Home landing page, the viewer sees “FIGHT WITH PRESIDENT TRUMP!”

Immediately beneath this is a video clip, with superimposed font, again in all-caps, all-bold: “JOIN THE ARMY FOR TRUMP!”

The website’s Home page goes on to demonize both journalists and Democrats, dismisses “News” as “Fake”, and then prompts users to take immediate action in defense of Donald Trump.

Throughout the entire website are consistent and relentless references to fighting, enlistment, and other militia-type language.”

FILMS FOR ACTION

(https://www.filmsforaction.org/articles/army-for-trump-enlists-citizens-to-fight-for-donald-trump-2020/)

ARMY FOR TRUMP “Enlists” Citizens to “FIGHT” for Donald Trump 2020

By Matthew R. Bishop / filmsforaction.org / Jun 6, 2020

A terrifying new website recently opened up: ArmyForTrump.com

The website is recruiting “soldiers” to “enlist” and “fight” in the “Trump Army” in “the front lines” of the 2020 election war.

This is a website paid for and approved by the Donald J. Trump for President Campaign.

In big, bold, all-capital letters, at the center-top and front of the Home landing page, the viewer sees “FIGHT WITH PRESIDENT TRUMP!”

Immediately beneath this is a video clip, with superimposed font, again in all-caps, all-bold: “JOIN THE ARMY FOR TRUMP!”

The website’s Home page goes on to demonize both journalists and Democrats, dismisses “News” as “Fake”, and then prompts users to take immediate action in defense of Donald Trump.

Throughout the entire website are consistent and relentless references to fighting, enlistment, and other militia-type language.

“ARMY’ and “FIGHT”, specifically, are constantly repeated, almost always in all-caps and all-bold letters.

Recruits for door-to-door campaigners are described as “the front lines” of “the Donald Trump Army”.

In order to join the “ARMY”, you must type “ENLIST” to the provided phone number.

Again—this an official website which is paid for and sponsored by Donald Trump himself.

This website appears to have been launched around the same day (June 5th, 2020) that President Trump ordered an enormous U.S. Army force withdraw of 9,500 troops from bases in Germany.

The 9,500 U.S. soldiers will be moving from Germany back to U.S. bases by September, two months ahead of the U.S. 2020 Presidential Elections.

This work is licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License

Added by Matthew R. Bishop

(https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10222210889406134&id=1381644860)

Dea Luvon

(9 Jun 2020):

fact checked. next level scary.

(https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-army-fundraising-email/)

(https://www.huffpost.com/entry/rosemary-ketchum-elected-west-virginia_n_5ee0796bc5b6a6b09fc4e4e4?ncid=engmodushpmg00000003)

POLITICS 06/10/2020 05:31 am ET Updated 1 hour ago

West Virginia Elects Its First Out Transgender Official

Rosemary Ketchum “has shattered a lavender ceiling,” the LGBTQ Victory Fund said Tuesday night.

By Nick Visser

West Virginia elected its first out transgender official on Tuesday, a victory civil rights groups said would help bolster representation and political power for LGBTQ Americans.

Rosemary Ketchum won her bid for the Wheeling City Council on Tuesday and will represent the city’s Ward 3. When she assumes her role on July 1, Ketchum will be one of just four out LGBTQ officials in the state to hold public office.

“I’m incredibly excited and grateful. I know this was a close race,” Ketchum told The Wheeling News-Register on Tuesday, noting that while she didn’t campaign on her identity, the win “matters a lot.”

LGBTQ Victory Fund

✔

@VictoryFund

HISTORY MADE: @RosemaryKetchum just won a seat on the Wheeling City Council and is now the first out trans person ever elected in West Virginia! She will be one of just 27 out trans elected officials in the entire nation.

972

7:36 PM – Jun 9, 2020

Ketchum works at the National Alliance for Mental Illness and is an active community organizer.

“I believe that we must work WITH our community members to solve problems rather than without them or worse – against them,” she wrote on her campaign site. “But all too often, what we have seen is a lack of focus, a lack of drive, and most notably, a lack of presence regarding our elected community leaders.”

The LGBTQ Victory Fund, which backed Ketchum’s bid, noted her win is a landmark moment in the fight for representation. There are just 26 out transgender officials in the United States, and the group said Ketchum’s victory “will resonate well beyond her state.”

“Rosemary has shattered a lavender ceiling in West Virginia and will join the growing number of out trans elected officials serving nationwide,” the group’s president, Annise Parker, said in a statement. “We know Rosemary’s race will inspire other trans people from conservative states to consider a run for office in their communities – and then those candidates will inspire others as well. That virtuous cycle is the key to building trans acceptance and political power long-term.”

(https://www.hrc.org/blog/the-list-of-trumps-unprecedented-steps-for-the-lgbtq-community)

The Real List of Trump’s “Unprecedented Steps” for the LGBTQ Community

By Lucas Acosta June 11, 2020

HRC President Alphonso David: “The RNC is hallucinating and advancing misleading and disingenuous rhetoric.

Yes, Trump has taken many ‘unprecedented’ steps, but those steps have been to undermine and eliminate rights protecting LGBTQ people, not empower us. Appointing a small handful of gay people out of thousands of nominations and making a very few — and unfullfilled — pledges can hardly qualify as accomplishments. Don’t gaslight us. The Trump-Pence administration is the most virulently anti-LGBTQ administration in decades — the RNC cannot put lipstick on a pig.”

Here’s a list of attacks the Trump-Pence administration has levied against LGBTQ people:

For the full list of Trump’s attacks on LGBTQ people, visit HRC.org/Trump.

Opposition to the Equality Act: Despite support from almost every segment of the U.S. population and a majority of Republicans, President Trump opposed the Equality Act. In May, the House passed the Equality Act, voting to guarantee critical non-discrimination protections for LGBTQ people among other crucial rights.

Appointed anti-LGBTQ judges: Trump has appointed anti-LGBTQ judges with alarming anti-LGBTQ records to appointments at every level of the judicial system, including anti-equality Supreme Court Justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh and federal nominees Kacsmaryk, Mateer, Bounds, Vitter. Menashi and others.

Joked about Pence’s desire to hang LGBTQ people: In 2017, Trump joked about Vice President Pence’s anti-gay agenda saying “Don’t ask that guy—he wants to hang them all!”

(https://apple.news/AMVS3WjWWQH-B6qTjpjAR5g)

Trump administration reverses health protections for transgender people

Friday’s announcement came on the fourth anniversary of the Pulse shooting that killed 49 people at a gay nightclub

Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally in Charlotte, North Carolina

Guardian staff and agencies

Published on Fri 12 Jun 2020 18.39 EDT

The Trump administration has finalized a regulation rolling back Obama-era protections for transgender Americans against sex discrimination in health care.

According to the new version of the policy, the Department of Health and Human Services will be “returning to the government’s interpretation of sex discrimination according to the plain meaning of the word ‘sex’ as male or female and as determined by biology”.

The Obama regulation defined gender as a person’s internal sense of being male, female, neither or a combination.

The policy shift, long sought by Donald Trump’s religious and socially conservative supporters, would allow healthcare providers and insurance companies that receive federal funding to refuse to provide or cover transition-related care for trans Americans.

(https://www.advocate.com/crime/2020/6/12/two-black-transgender-women-were-murdered-week-when-will-it-end)

CRIME

Two Black Transgender Women Were Killed This Week, When Will it End?

Dominique Rem’mie Fells of Philadelphia and Riah Milton of Liberty, Ohio, are the latest cases in a growing epidemic of Black trans homicides.

BY DAVID ARTAVIA

JUNE 12 2020 12:49 PM EDT

As the nation continues to demand action against white supremacy and police brutality, the recent deaths of two Black trans women are a disturbing reminder that we must stay vigilant to the growing violence against trans women of color.

Riah Milton of Liberty Township, Ohio, was shot and killed on Tuesday by three people who lured her into a park where she was ambushed and shot to death.

Three people have since been arrested in connection to her death.

Kaleb Marshall Tooson, 18, has since been charged with murder and aggravated robbery. Tyree Jeffery Cross, 25, currently has a warrant out for his arrest for Milton’s murder. A third assailant, an unidentified minor, was charged with complicity to aggravated robbery, murder, and tampering with evidence. He is currently being held by police.

“My dear sister Riah Milton passed away on June 9, 2020,” a friend wrote on a GoFundMe page set up to help pay for Milton’s funeral and other arrangements. “She was an amazing person who was loved by everyone. This Gofundme is to help with sending her home.”

A second victim, Dominique “Rem’mie” Fells, was found along the banks of the Schuylkill River in Philadelphia earlier this week.

Reports state that Fells’s body sustained serious injuries to the head and face. Her legs were separate from her body and were not recovered at the scene or anywhere else.

According to Philadelphia Gay News, the manner in which her legs were severed suggest “they were run over by a train.”

“One more precious Black trans woman’s life has been violently taken,” Deja Lynn Alvarez, a trans woman and community organizer, told Philadelphia Gay News.

“As thousands take to the streets to proclaim that Black Lives Matter, it is critical we remember that this includes Black trans lives,” Celena Morrison, a Black trans woman who leads the city’s office of LGBTQ+ Affairs, said in a statement. “Dominique Rem’mie Fells’ life mattered. We are reminded with this, and countless other painful losses — especially within our transgender communities — that there is much left to do until we achieve full equality, respect, and support for us all. The murder of transgender people — especially those of color — is truly an epidemic and a crisis that we cannot afford to allow to persist any further. Let us uplift her memory together.”

(https://facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=968183152682&id=164100153)

Trey Radu-Blackburn

(12 Jun 2020):

Read this. Then read it again and understand why so many trans folks and members of the LGBTQ+ community are frightened and furious.

That this administration did this during Pride month and during a global health crisis is the point. The cruelty is the point.

I am lucky. I thankfully have never been denied service because of who I love. I live in an incredibly liberal city.

But that may not be the case if I lived somewhere different. I don’t pass for straight. I’ve never really passed. I have to work at it.

I am not trans, but I fear for my trans and non-binary and non-conforming friends. I don’t want my friends and loved ones to be laughed at and die because of who they are.

If you support this administration, you don’t support me or my friends. If you support him because of his economic policies, check your heart, cause while your walker or portfolio may be full, your heart is empty.

Vote in November. If your city or state still has a primary coming up (New York on June 23), vote in those, too.

Chloe Johnson

(12 Jun 2020):

Things that can happen now that transgender people are no longer covered from discrimination in Healthcare (CW for my trans friends this is hard to type let alone read)

– any part of my Healthcare coverage, including my hormones, surgeries, or basic checkups, can be revoked for the simple reason that I’m trans.

-in the case of a medical emergency, should I come across someone who doesn’t want to treat me for who I am, it is legal for them to watch me suffer.

-extremist organizations will be emboldened by this and will target trans people more

– operations that cost cisgender people a certain amount WILL cost me even more for the same thing because it’s for gender transition

– I will be unable to ever accurately represent myself on important medical forms. This means that doctors will have no way to completely accurately treat me because there is no place for me to specify that I am indeed trans

I could go on but I’m kinda crying so if ur cis and this helps bring how dire this situation a little closer to home for u then great

(https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/06/12/868073068/transgender-health-protections-reversed-by-trump-administration)

(https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=3335913216441074&id=229020663797027)

Insane In The Mom-Brain

(13 Jun 2020):

This is a long but necessary read if you care to learn about what is happening with LGBTQ rights at the moment.

Their rights to equal healthcare are at stake, which means that their lives are at stake.

These new rules are so lax that it could mean that even if you aren’t part of the LGBTQ community, your life could be in danger as well.

Please read and share.

People I love, people many of us love, are frightened and hurting today. There’s absolutely no reason for hateful comments and you will be blocked.

Be a kind and compassionate human. It’s really not that difficult, it feels pretty good and the world could use MANY MORE of us right now.

I’m posting a few supplemental articles on the topic:

(Insane In The Mom-Brain):

(https://mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSKBN23J37M)

(Insane In The Mom-Brain):

(https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/06/12/868073068/transgender-health-protections-reversed-by-trump-administration)

(Insane In The Mom-Brain):

https://www.advocate.com/transgender/2020/6/12/trump-administration-kills-trans-protections-affordable-care-act)

(Insane In The Mom-Brain):

https://civilrights.org/2020/06/12/trumps-hhs-encourages-health-care-discrimination-during-global-pandemic/)

there’s a better than average chance that we’re not going to get care, because of somebody’s religious biases or other biases against the fact that we exist.

That’s the *whole reason* the Obama administration issued an executive order to interpret sex discrimination in the ACA as not just sex at birth, but also discrimination on the basis of gender identity or the sex of your partner (sexual orientation). They did this because Congress has been unwilling or unable to pass *any* federal law protecting LGBTQ people from discrimination for more than three decades, and this was the best possible way available at the time to address an actual, real world problem queer people of various stripes experience, which has real world consequences.

the Trump administration just gave license to people to *continue doing it, and to do it more often*, which is the whole point.

And for the folks claiming that this all happened 25 years ago and things are magically all better now… no, they’re not.

(https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2016/04/medical-religious-exemptions-doctors-therapists-mississippi-tennessee/478797/)

Please read the Comments section from this original post.

(https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=3335913216441074&id=229020663797027)

Something similar happened to me.

(https://slimandme.wordpress.com/2017/12/11/crushed-mustang/)

I was nearly killed when a tour bus hit me while I was driving my passenger vehicle on the Interstate highway (December 1999).

This happened at a Red State under absolute authority of Red Right-wing Republi-con Party. Drumpf will make it happen in Red Amerika.

The EMTs had to use the Jaws of Life to extract me from my crushed vehicle.

They began cutting off all my clothing right there in the open, during the cold of the Winter night.

I matter-of-fact told that EMT that I am Inter-sex and Transsexual, to please – PLEASE – respect my privacy..

Nope.

He cut off all my clothing, leaving me naked and freezing on the gurney as he summoned the others at the scene to ‘come look at the ‘Tr*nny’’.

I did what I could using my hands to cover my self.

I cried out in agony from the pain in my right shoulder – it was dislocated.

The EMTs and the Highway Patrol officer repeatedly demanded that I tell them what narcotics I was using, how much alcohol I was drinking. I repeatedly replied to them that I don’t do drugs, don’t drink booze; my words made no difference to them. They stuck me at least six separate times with a needle to draw my blood as I lay there on the gurney; they certainly hoped to obtain evidence against me, but there would be none other than the callous actions of those EMTs.

Eventually, an EMT put a paper sheet over me as he loaded me into the ambulance.

Mistreatment persisted at the Good Samaritan Hospital ER. Yep. Good Samaritan Hospital. That’s their name.

The ER physician refused to provide any pain relief as he used surgical staples to close my cracked skull. Each staple – all 11, 12, I counted more than enough – was excruciating.

He still did nothing to re-set my dislocated shoulder.

He did nothing to re-set my shattered clavicle.

He pushed and shoved me while he was setting me for radiology CAT scans.

Hours later, the ER sent me to a hospital room. It was a ‘single’ room – keeping me separate from women patients. Yet the nurse issued a men’s urinal bottle. I refused to use that device; I hobbled to the bathroom rather than use that monstrosity.

The hospital discharged me while I was still in pain. No physician provided any medication for me.

I had several medical appointments following discharge during the following months. The nurses and doctors continued to mal-treat me at each event, apparently worse each time after I filed written complaints.

So, yeh. I can see what’s coming with Drumpf’s eagerness for his future of bigotry and hatred against Trans people.

(http://www.debbieballard.org/debbiesbooks/32-ls1undercover)

Debbie Ballard: IT Architect, Author

Transgender Information Site

Welcome to Debbie Ballard’s Transgender Information Site.

Deborah Ballard aka Debbie Lawrence is a transgender woman with nearly 40 years of IT experience, nearly 40 years of transformational programs including 12 step programs, leadership training programs, open source support groups, transgender support groups and websites. Debbie has written 6 books on transgender issues, so far.

Living in Stealth 1 : Undercover

Details

Written by Debbie Lawrence

Category: Debbie’s Books

Published: 12 July 2017

Karen Ulane – She sued her case to the USA Supreme Court in December 1983.

News accounts reporting about the current three cases at the Supreme Court claim that they are the first LGBT cases to be heard at the Supreme Court. Nope. I don’t know that Ulane’s was the ‘first’, hers certainly preceded the current three by more than three decades. The Supreme Court ruled against her. Nevertheless, her employer actually felt ethically compelled to subsequently settle her case in her favour – a sign how times were quite different, less hostile than today, including the Catholic Church.

Thank you, Karen!

Please read the following news articles.

(https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=2085130845121103&id=100008726227817)

(https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1989-05-23-mn-850-story.html)

Crash Kills Sex-Changed Combat Pilot Karen Ulane

Karen Ulane, a decorated Vietnam combat pilot who was fired by Eastern Airlines after a sex-change operation in 1980, was killed in the crash of a World War II-vintage charter plane. She was 48.

Ulane, known until her surgery as Kenneth Ulane, was at the controls when the twin-propeller DC-3 owned by an air taxi and cargo service crashed and burned in a field near here Monday. Two others aboard were killed.

Ulane had a sex-change operation and hormone treatments in 1980 after 12 years with Eastern. The airline fired her, citing possible safety hazards in stressful situations. U.S. District Judge John F. Grady ordered reinstatement and $158,590 in back pay and other expenses in 1983. An appeals court disagreed and reversed the decision, and the U.S. Supreme Court in 1985 let the appellate ruling stand.

Ulane eventually received a settlement from Eastern that was “substantially more” than the amount ordered by Grady, said her attorney, Dean Dickie.

Survivors include a son from a marriage while she was Kenneth Ulane.

(https://www.revolvy.com/page/Karen-Ulane?cr=1)

Karen Frances Ulane (December 10, 1941 – May 22, 1989) was an American airline pilot who was dismissed by Eastern Airlines after undergoing sex reassignment surgery in 1980.[1] The case Ulane v. Eastern Airlines became the federal legal precedent for transsexual legal status under the Civil Rights Act of 1964.[2]

Life and career

Ulane was born in Chicago, Illinois and graduated from St. Ignatius College Prep. Ulane joined the United States Army and flew combat missions in the Vietnam War from 1964 to 1968, then became a pilot for Eastern Airlines.[2] Following employment with Eastern Airlines, Ulane transitioned from Kenneth to Karen Frances in April 1980.[3]

T.R. Buttion, the Senior Vice President of Flight Operations presented her with a letter of termination on April 24, 1981 that read, “It is our belief that the controversial nature of the operation you have undergone will detract from and prevent any flight crew of which you are a part of from operating in the integrated, coordinated fashion that is necessary to attain the highest degree of safety.” The letter also noted that other Eastern pilots would refuse to fly with her.[4]

Ulane filed a discrimination charge with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission which resulted in the civil case, Ulane v. Eastern Airlines. In her case against Eastern Airlines, Ulane reported coping with gender dysphoria from the age of 5 or 6.[3] Although she won the case against Eastern,[5] it was overturned on appeal the in U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.[2][6][7]

Ulane died in the crash of a chartered DC-3 she was piloting on a training flight, approximately five miles southwest of DeKalb, Illinois on May 22, 1989. Two others also died in the crash.[8][9]

Ulane v. Eastern Airlines via Transgender Law and Policy site

Karen F. Ulane Memorial via Experimental Aircraft Association

(https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1989-05-25-8902040085-story.html)

PILOTS KILLED IN CRASH MOURNED

Joseph SjostromCHICAGO TRIBUNE

The Aurora Municipal Airport`s American flag is at half-staff in honor of three aviators with strong personal and professional links to the airport who died in the crash of a DC-3 airplane on Monday.

Those killed were Paul Killman, 56, of Aurora, chairman of the airport`s advisory board since October and a board member since 1981; Karen Ulane, 48, of Aurora, a decorated military pilot, a board member and a pilot for the charter firm that owned the DC-3; and Arthur Lutz, 72, a ”pilot`s pilot” who had been flying since World War II and who was also a pilot for the DC-3`s owner.

”Paul and Karen were the two most unselfish people I ever met,” said Robert A. Rieser, director of the airport, which is owned by the City of Aurora.

Ulane, a native of Chicago`s Bridgeport neighborhood, learned to fly in 1959. Then known as Kenneth, Ulane flew combat missions for the Army in Vietnam, earning the Air Medal of Honor.

Ulane was later a pilot for Eastern Airlines, rising to the rank of first officer and flight instructor, before taking a leave in 1979 for a sex-change operation and changing her name to Karen.

Eastern fired her, citing possible safety hazards, but Ulane filed suit in federal court and briefly won reinstatement and back pay. An appeals court reversed her victory, and the U.S. Supreme Court allowed the reversal to stand.

Since leaving Eastern, she had piloted planes for charter firms at the Aurora airfield and operated several businesses, including a flower shop in Wheaton and an aviation equipment business in Aurora, Rieser said.

She was building her own airplane, a single-engine GP-4, out of wood and fiberglass.

Mass for Ulane will be said at 10 a.m. Saturday in St. Mary of Perpetual Help Catholic Church, 1039 W. 32d St., Chicago.

(https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/06/12/868073068/transgender-health-protections-reversed-by-trump-administration)

POLICY-ISH

Transgender Health Protections Reversed By Trump Administration

June 12, 20204:46 PM ET

Selena Simmons-Duffin

Roger Severino, who directs the Office for Civil Rights in the Department of Health and Human Services, has long argued that “sex discrimination” protections in the Affordable Care Act aren’t meant to encompass protections for transgender people.

Updated at 7:29 p.m. ET

The Trump administration on Friday finalized a rule that would remove nondiscrimination protections for LGBTQ people when it comes to health care and health insurance.

“HHS respects the dignity of every human being, and as we have shown in our response to the pandemic, we vigorously protect and enforce the civil rights of all to the fullest extent permitted by our laws as passed by Congress,” said Roger Severino, who directs the Office for Civil Rights in the Department of Health and Human Services, in a written statement announcing that the HHS rule had become final. The rule is set to go into effect by mid-August.

It is one of many rules and regulations put forward by the Trump administration that defines “sex discrimination” as only applying when someone faces discrimination for being male or female, and does not protect people from discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.

Supporters of the new rule said this is a necessary reversal of Obama-era executive overreach and will reduce confusion about the legal meaning of “sex discrimination.” Critics argue the rule could further harm an already vulnerable group — transgender people — in the midst of a pandemic and historic unrest spurred by the killing of George Floyd at the hands of police in Minneapolis.

“I can’t help but wonder if the timing [of this rule] is by design so that this is something that people won’t pay attention to,” said Tia Sherèe Gaynor, a political science professor at the University of Cincinnati.

What the final rule does

The rule focuses on nondiscrimination protections laid out in Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act. That federal law established that it is illegal to discriminate on the basis of “race, color, national origin, sex, age or disability in certain health programs and activities.” In 2016, an Obama-era rule explained that protections regarding “sex” encompass those based on gender identity, which it defined as “male, female, neither, or a combination of male and female.”

From the article:

Transgender Health Protections Reversed By Trump Administration

(https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/06/12/868073068/transgender-health-protections-reversed-by-trump-administration)

Under the new rule, a transgender person could, for example, be refused care for a checkup at a doctor’s office, explains Lindsey Dawson associate director of HIV Policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation. Other possible scenarios include a transgender man being denied treatment for ovarian cancer, or a hysterectomy not being covered by an insurer — or costing more when the procedure is related to someone’s gender transition.

The Trump rule makes changes to gender-based discrimination protections beyond Section 1557 of the ACA; it affects regulations pertaining to access to health insurance, for example, including cost-sharing, health plan marketing, and benefits. Under the new rule, an insurance company could “charge higher premiums or other fees for those who are LGBTQ [or] cancel or deny coverage,” Dawson says.

———–

(https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=2690050287987152&id=100009466213975)

Tina Zee

You know, I try REALLY hard to not be one of those, “If You Support Trump, I Can’t Be Your Friend” people, but in moments like this, I’m left to wonder, why is it so easy for you to protect him, but you will not speak up for me?

This rule is an attack. Wrong is wrong. This is wrong.

And your silence is deafening.

(https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=2302900656679058&id=100008774385631)

Cammie Vanderveur

“HHS respects the dignity of every human being”. Is that the lie this administration tells itself to dull its conscience? Remind me what is at all dignified about discriminating against trans people? What is respectful about it? What is even humane about deliberately targeting us to deny us insurance, deliberately targeting us to allow us to be refused care by doctors?

This administration has been repeatedly attacking the dignity and respect of people like me: Ranging from (1) institutionalizing discrimination in schools against trans children, (2) in directing the department of education to ignore discrimination cases with trans people, (3) in housing with HUD and in emergency shelters, (4) in government contract employment (5) in insurance (6) in medical care, (7) in adoption and foster care, (8) in the military, (9) in treatment of prisoners, (10) in refugees seeking assylum from anti-lgbt violence, (11) in erasing us from the census, (12) in withholding federal funding unless schools deliberately discriminate against trans people in sports, (13) in removal from even being allowed to be spoken about at the CDC let alone considered, (14) in widespread nominations of outspoken anti-trans judges, (15) in the justice department advised to refuse to stand up for or protect trans workers and even having trans people’s own department of justice petitioning the supreme court for open season in discrimination against us on the basis of sex in all employment public or private stating that transgender status “does not prohibit discrimination against transgender persons based on their transgender status.” (16) in petitioning for removing references to trans people at the U.N., (17) in appealing against accommodating passports for gender neutral trans people, (16) with the elderly or poor on medicare or medicaid, (17) with discrimination in the federal grants process, (18) with Tricare for military dependents and retirees. And with the above may of these have had multiple repeat attacks playing out on trans people’s respect, and dignity.

But it’s just coincidence right? Not a deliberate systemic targeted approach with a clear and deliberate pattern of targeting over and over and attacking us and codifying and institutionalizing blatant discrimination? You would have to blind or dishonest to pretend that is not what’s happening. This makes me sick.

(https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10207899166993238&id=1718221169)

Billie Rene

Bigots doing their thing… and politicians doing theirs…

Evil people doing evil just for fun ‼️🤬🤬

The Trump administration Friday finalized a rule that would remove nondiscrimination protections for LGBTQ people when it comes to health care and health insurance.

(https://m.facebook.com/story.php? (https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=3559169504093058&id=100000001294374)

Marie Bobo-Smith

THIS IS MY PAIN!!!

You say you love and support me so tell me, where the fuck is your outrage at what this administration and the Republican party is doing to us #transgender folx?

Where the fuck is your voice for us?

Where are your signs of protest against what they are doing to us transgender people?

No, I won’t sit down and shut up or put aside my outrage to stand by your side while this is happening to us.

Us transgender people have put aside our stuff every single time to stand by your sides to help fight for your causes and your rights only to be brushed aside and told we’re just being selfish for wanting to know when the fuck will our lives be important enough for you to care about and fight for like we’ve done for you.

Women’s rights? We were there for you.

Civil rights movement of the 60s and 70s? We were there for you.

LGB movement of the 70s, 80s and 90s? We were there for you.

The right for same-sex marriage? We were there for you.

#blacklivesmatter ? We are there for you, again.

WHEN THE FUCK WILL YOU SHOW UP IN FORCE FOR US?

You want to know a reason the suicide rate of transgender people, especially our youth, is so high? This, this is fucking why. You only give us lip service, you don’t fucking take to the streets and take action for us.

Fuck you and your god damned words of support, give us your fucking action!!!!

Check your own fucking privledge!!!!

#translivesmatter

“Fair and Equal Treatment For All Under The Law” except…

“One of many rules & regs put forward by Trump defines ‘sex discrimination’ as only applying when someone faces discrimination for being male or female, and does not protect people from discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.”

(https://www.facebook.com/452797224923658/posts/1487282148141822/)

Democratic Coalition Against Trump

The Trump administration just finalized a rule that would remove nondiscrimination protections for #LGBTQ people in health care and health insurance. They chose to do it late on a Friday because they are truly awful people and they thought you would not notice.

Today is the 4th anniversary of the Pulse Nightclub shooting.

It’s Pride. We’re in the middle of a pandemic.

And the Trump Administration just erased rules to protect LGBTQ Americans from discrimination.

Once again the callousness, cruelty and division are by design

#BigotPresident

(https://www.facebook.com/231073170259044/posts/3303241186375545/)

Equality Arizona

We must Vote Out the hate and discrimination of the Trump administration. – at every level of government from the Office of the President to our local school boards.

It is absolutely clear that the Trump administration does NOT respect the dignity of every human being. In fact it is abundantly clear that this administration does not believe that LGBTQ+ people, Black people, Indigenous people, other people of color, disabled people, or women deserve to be treated with basic human dignity and respect.

The reversal of protections for trans people is inexcusable – as is this administrations complete failure to respond to the pandemic, to the epidemic of police violence, and to the disease of white supremacy in our nation.

(https://www.facebook.com/1864721517082089/posts/2791882181032680/)

Democratic Attorneys General Association

Sadly, it’s par for the course that Donald J. Trump wants to roll back protections for critical life-saving care for some of our most vulnerable communities in the middle of an unprecedented public health crisis.

Last month, Massachusetts AG Maura Healey & California AG Xavier Becerra led a 21 Dem AG coalition calling on the Trump admin to abandon this dangerous rule change that undermines critical anti-discrimination protections for BIPOC, disabled people, women, & #LGBTQ individuals.

We should be focusing on expanding access to care, rather than discriminating against those hit hard by #COVID19.

It’s critical we elect leaders in November that agree.

()

Empowered Trans Women

I’m so sorry. 😔

All I can say is, let’s continue to fight like crazy.

Let’s mobilize.

And let’s make damn sure we get them out in November.

PS: if you STILL like Trump, please, please wake up.

()

Arizona TransAlliance

Once again, the Trump Administration focuses its hate on the utterly harmless and highly vulnerable transgender community, seeking to make it harder for us to get something so basic as healthcare. They will not rest until they have driven all trans people from public life.

Democracies die in the darkness of Coronavirus.

(https://www.facebook.com/574719552680201/posts/1656651044487041/)

Nas Daily

#translivesmatter

This is my pain.

I know exactly how it feels to be beaten because I am Transgender.

I know how it feels to have to call ahead to places of business to find if my kind is welcome.

I know what it feels like to be kicked out of a place to live.

I know what it’s like to be legally discriminated against because I am Transgender.

I know the shame of being strip-searched every time I have to fly because I am Transgender.

I am waiting for the Supreme Court’s decision as to whether it is legal to fire me because I am Transgender.

I was born this way and can’t change it. My mere existence is technically illegal in half the country; in some parts of the world, my existence means an instant death sentence.

I know what is feels like to be bullied and harassed because I am Transgender.

We Transgender people are brutally murdered and beaten on a daily basis; most people don’t care.

We are targeted on a daily basis by various groups and disparaged as abominations that shouldn’t be allowed to live.

Violence is committed against us every time someone mis-genders us or uses our deadnames.

We have been targets of oppression and violence since Biblical times.

We are the targets of a systematic genocide; most people don’t care.

I know the daily unmitigated fear of stepping out of my home wondering if today is the day I will be killed because I am a Transgender woman.

I know the fear of using a public bathroom because I am Transgender.

I know the fear and pain of losing the love of family and friends because I am Transgender.

I know pain and fear through every fiber of my being because I am Transgender.

I know the pain of being brushed aside because my existence as a Transgender woman isn’t important enough to care about to anyone but me at any given time of life.

(https://apple.news/AMVS3WjWWQH-B6qTjpjAR5g)

Trump administration reverses health protections for transgender people

Friday’s announcement came on the fourth anniversary of the Pulse shooting that killed 49 people at a gay nightclub

Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally in Charlotte, North Carolina

Guardian staff and agencies

Published on Fri 12 Jun 2020 18.39 EDT

The Trump administration has finalized a regulation rolling back Obama-era protections for transgender Americans against sex discrimination in health care.

The Obama regulation defined gender as a person’s internal sense of being male, female, neither or a combination.

(https://www.advocate.com/crime/2020/6/12/two-black-transgender-women-were-murdered-week-when-will-it-end)

CRIME

Two Black Transgender Women Were Killed This Week, When Will it End?

Dominique Rem’mie Fells of Philadelphia and Riah Milton of Liberty, Ohio, are the latest cases in a growing epidemic of Black trans homicides.

BY DAVID ARTAVIA

JUNE 12 2020 12:49 PM EDT

Riah Milton of Liberty Township, Ohio, was shot and killed on Tuesday by three people who lured her into a park where she was ambushed and shot to death.

Three people have since been arrested in connection to her death.

A second victim, Dominique “Rem’mie” Fells, was found along the banks of the Schuylkill River in Philadelphia earlier this week.

Reports state that Fells’s body sustained serious injuries to the head and face. Her legs were separate from her body and were not recovered at the scene or anywhere else.

According to Philadelphia Gay News, the manner in which her legs were severed suggest “they were run over by a train.”

“One more precious Black trans woman’s life has been violently taken,” Deja Lynn Alvarez, a trans woman and community organizer, told Philadelphia Gay News.

(https://facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=968183152682&id=164100153)

Trey Radu-Blackburn

(12 Jun 2020):

Read this. Then read it again and understand why so many trans folks and members of the LGBTQ+ community are frightened and furious.

That this administration did this during Pride month and during a global health crisis is the point. The cruelty is the point.

I am lucky. I thankfully have never been denied service because of who I love. I live in an incredibly liberal city.

But that may not be the case if I lived somewhere different. I don’t pass for straight. I’ve never really passed. I have to work at it.

I am not trans, but I fear for my trans and non-binary and non-conforming friends. I don’t want my friends and loved ones to be laughed at and die because of who they are.

Vote in November. If your city or state still has a primary coming up (New York on June 23), vote in those, too.

Chloe Johnson

(12 Jun 2020):

Things that can happen now that transgender people are no longer covered from discrimination in Healthcare (CW for my trans friends this is hard to type let alone read)

– any part of my Healthcare coverage, including my hormones, surgeries, or basic checkups, can be revoked for the simple reason that I’m trans.

-in the case of a medical emergency, should I come across someone who doesn’t want to treat me for who I am, it is legal for them to watch me suffer.

-extremist organizations will be emboldened by this and will target trans people more

– operations that cost cisgender people a certain amount WILL cost me even more for the same thing because it’s for gender transition

I could go on but I’m kinda crying so if ur cis and this helps bring how dire this situation a little closer to home for u then great

(https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/06/12/868073068/transgender-health-protections-reversed-by-trump-administration)

(https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=3335913216441074&id=229020663797027)

Insane In The Mom-Brain

(13 Jun 2020):

This is a long but necessary read if you care to learn about what is happening with LGBTQ rights at the moment.

Their rights to equal healthcare are at stake, which means that their lives are at stake.

These new rules are so lax that it could mean that even if you aren’t part of the LGBTQ community, your life could be in danger as well.

Please read and share.

People I love, people many of us love, are frightened and hurting today. There’s absolutely no reason for hateful comments and you will be blocked.

Be a kind and compassionate human. It’s really not that difficult, it feels pretty good and the world could use MANY MORE of us right now.

I’m posting a few supplemental articles on the topic:

(Insane In The Mom-Brain):

(https://mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSKBN23J37M)

(Insane In The Mom-Brain):

(https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/06/12/868073068/transgender-health-protections-reversed-by-trump-administration)

(Insane In The Mom-Brain):

https://www.advocate.com/transgender/2020/6/12/trump-administration-kills-trans-protections-affordable-care-act)

(Insane In The Mom-Brain):

https://civilrights.org/2020/06/12/trumps-hhs-encourages-health-care-discrimination-during-global-pandemic/)

there’s a better than average chance that we’re not going to get care, because of somebody’s religious biases or other biases against the fact that we exist.

the Trump administration just gave license to people to *continue doing it, and to do it more often*, which is the whole point.

And for the folks claiming that this all happened 25 years ago and things are magically all better now… no, they’re not.

(https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2016/04/medical-religious-exemptions-doctors-therapists-mississippi-tennessee/478797/)

Please read the Comments section from this original post.

(https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=3335913216441074&id=229020663797027)

Something similar happened to me.

(https://slimandme.wordpress.com/2017/12/11/crushed-mustang/)

I was nearly killed when a tour bus hit me while I was driving my passenger vehicle on the Interstate highway (December 1999).

This happened at a Red State under absolute authority of Red Right-wing Republi-con Party. Drumpf will make it happen in Red Amerika.

The EMTs had to use the Jaws of Life to extract me from my crushed vehicle.

They began cutting off all my clothing right there in the open, during the cold of the Winter night.

I matter-of-fact told that EMT that I am Inter-sex and Transsexual, to please – PLEASE – respect my privacy..

Nope.

He cut off all my clothing, leaving me naked and freezing on the gurney as he summoned the others at the scene to ‘come look at the ‘Tr*nny’’.

I did what I could using my hands to cover my self.

I cried out in agony from the pain in my right shoulder – it was dislocated.

Eventually, an EMT put a paper sheet over me as he loaded me into the ambulance.

Mistreatment persisted at the Good Samaritan Hospital ER. Yep. Good Samaritan Hospital. That’s their name.

The ER physician refused to provide any pain relief as he used surgical staples to close my cracked skull. Each staple – all 11, 12, I counted more than enough – was excruciating.

He still did nothing to re-set my dislocated shoulder.

He did nothing to re-set my shattered clavicle.

He pushed and shoved me while he was setting me for radiology CAT scans.

The hospital discharged me while I was still in pain. No physician provided any medication for me.

So, yeh. I can see what’s coming with Drumpf’s eagerness for his future of bigotry and hatred against Trans people.

(https://time.com/5853325/black-trans-women-killed-riah-milton-dominique-remmie-fells-trump/)

U.S. LGBTQ

TWO BLACK TRANS WOMEN WERE KILLED IN THE U.S. IN THE PAST WEEK AS TRUMP REVOKES DISCRIMINATION PROTECTIONS FOR TRANS PEOPLE

BY MADELEINE CARLISLE

JUNE 13, 2020 5:10 PM EDT

Two Black trans women — Riah Milton in Ohio and Dominique “Rem’Mie” Fells in Pennsylvania — were killed earlier this week, amid an increasing outcry from activists to protect Black trans people and as the Trump administration reversed protections for transgender people in the U.S. health care system.

According to local authorities, Milton was shot and killed during a robbery in Liberty Township, Ohio, on June 9. According to the LGBTQ+ advocacy group the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), 25-year-old Milton worked as a home health aide and attended the University of Cincinnati. Two people have been arrested and charged with her murder. A third man, Tyree Cross, has not been apprehended, according to local police.

Only a day earlier, on June 8, Dominique “Rem’Mie” Fells was found dead in Philadelphia, Penn., the Philadelphia Police Department confirmed to TIME. On Friday, her death was ruled a homicide and the investigation is still ongoing. ”The pain of such a loss is always difficult, but it is especially deep as we are in the midst of Pride month—a season typically filled with joy and celebration for many in our community,” the city of Philadelphia’s office of LBTQ affairs said in a statement.

Milton and Fells’ deaths come amidst mass protests in the U.S. — and the world — against systemic racism and police brutality, which demand systemic changes to address how people of color, specifically Black people, are treated.

“While we’re talking about racism, while we’re talking about the changes that need to be [done] in this country, we need to talk about the hate towards trans people… particularly towards Black trans women,” Deja Lynn Alvarez, a trans activist and advocate in Philadelphia, tells TIME.

When Alvarez, a 47-year-old Latina trans woman, learned of Fells’ death, one of her first thoughts was “no, not again,” she said. “Black trans women are being murdered at an incredibly high rate… being someone from the community, it feels like it’s almost every other day at this point.”

Transgender women of color — particularly Black transgender women — are disproportionately affected by fatal violence, impacted by the intersections of racism, sexism, homophobia, biphobia and transphobia, according a HRC report.

(https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-transgender-health-care-protections-erased-pride-month/)

Trump administration erases health care protections for transgender patients during Pride Month

BY LI COHEN

JUNE 13, 2020 / 8:06 AM / CBS NEWS

Just two weeks into Pride Month — and on the anniversary of the Pulse nightclub shooting — the Trump administration announced that it is rolling back Obama-era health care protections for people who are transgender. The rule, announced Friday, will impact transgender patients’ ability to fight against discrimination by doctors, medical facilities and health insurance providers.

Former president Barack Obama’s administration changed federal health care guidelines in 2016 to expand sex-based protections based to include protections based on gender identity, “which may be male, female, neither, or a combination of male and female.” His administration also pushed for discrimination protections for those who have had abortions.

But the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released a statement on Friday saying the final rule is based on “the plain meaning of the word ‘sex’ as male or female and as determined by biology.”

“All of these are essentially legislative changes that the Department lacked the authority to make,” the administration said of the 2016 changes in the final rule. “They purported to impose additional legal requirements on covered entities that cannot be justified by the text of Title IX, and in fact are in conflict with express exemptions in Title IX.”

In the summary of the final rule, HHS responded to several comments that criticized the lack of protection for people who do not identify with the sex they were assigned at birth. In one response to the comments, HHS compared gender identity to political affiliation.

“For example, in the unlikely event that a healthcare provider were to deny services to someone based solely on his or her political affiliation, the Department would not be able to address such denial of care under Section 1557,” HHS said. “Unlike other bases of discrimination, the categories of gender identity and sexual orientation (as well as political affiliation) are not set forth in those statutes.”

(https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/13/opinions/trump-rolling-back-health-care-protections-lgbtq-hope/index.html)

Trump is kicking the LGBTQ community while we’re down

Opinion by Allison Hope

Updated 4:24 PM ET, Sat June 13, 2020

Trump admin rolls back transgender health protections

Allison Hope is a writer whose work has been featured by The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, Slate and elsewhere. The views expressed here are the author’s. Read more opinion on CNN.

(CNN)The Trump administration yanked the rug out from under more than a million Americans on Friday by removing protections that prohibit discrimination in health care against transgender patients. This move — announced on the four-year anniversary of a shooting at a gay nightclub in Orland, Florida, in which 49 people died — is cruel and unusual punishment from an administration that chooses to represent a small and extreme fringe pushing to further marginalize the already disadvantaged.

While the move was no surprise — Trump first proposed removing the protections last spring — the timing feels like a poison arrow through the heart. It is particularly painful during Pride Month (and amid a global pandemic), during which millions of Americans have taken to the streets to speak out against systems of power that continue to suppress our freedoms, to our peril.

Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act, passed under former President Barack Obama in 2010, prohibits sex discrimination in federally funded health programs and activities; a 2016 rule interpreted this as including discrimination on the basis of gender identity and termination of pregnancy. The Trump administration is now rolling back that interpretation. Doing so will embolden some health care providers to turn away or deny care or coverage to patients simply because of who they are, or because they are seeking an abortion. It is a gargantuan step backwards on the moral arc of justice and a blight on the egregious record of Donald Trump.

Transgender people, who will be affected by this change, already face rampant discrimination in health care and indeed across all facets of civic life, including housing and employment. The new rule means transgender people can be turned away when seeking routine or basic care — not just transition-related treatment. A doctor or hospital could cite religious beliefs, for example, in denying care to someone whose identity doesn’t comport with their personal world view, and health insurance companies could deny coverage for certain procedures, leaving already vulnerable individuals needing medical care with no legal pathway to seek justice.

(https://www.wbur.org/news/2020/06/14/thousands-march-in-boston-for-black-transgender-lives)

Thousands March In Boston For Black Transgender Lives

June 14, 2020

Quincy Walters

Athena Vaughn, with the Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition, speaks through a bullhorn to the crowd at the “Trans Resistance Rally and March” Saturday.

A day after the Trump administration rolled back healthcare protections for transgender people, a day after the U.S. queer community paused to recognize the 49 people killed in the Pulse night club shooting four years ago, and just days after two transgender women were murdered in the U.S., thousands gathered in Franklin Park for the “Trans Resistance Vigil and March” Saturday.

“This is not a Pride. Unfortunately, we’re not celebrating happy things,” said Chastity Bowick, executive director of the Transgender Emergency Fund of Massachusetts. “So it’s time to put your fighting face on, your fighting shoes on, and get ready to march.”

Quincy J. Walters

@quincyjwalters

Pride may be cancelled because of COVID, but there’s a major turn out for this Trans Resistance vigil and march honoring the legacy of Stonewall in Boston today.

Embedded video

145

1:57 PM – Jun 13, 2020 · Boston, MA

41 people are talking about this

The US Supreme Court ruled in favour of Trans and LGBT employment rights.

I say that every employer should fire every employee who agrees that it is legal to fire an employee because of prejudice and hatred against them, their Gender Identity, their Sexual Orientation, etc.

Fire them because they are bigoted and CisHet.

Exactly!

It was a Good Monday morning – cautiously.

I’d been reading the news sources as they published their articles, compiling my own thoughts as I expect most all of us were doing that day.

Not so fast! Don’t celebrate too soon. It’s no reason to think that all is well in Drumpf’s Amerika. This is no time to be complacent.

This is not a signal that we can ignore the damage done by Drumpf, Republi-cons, Drumpfians, Deplorables, and members of our own Trans and LGBT Community whose loyalty lies with hate against us.

This ruling applies only to those employment cases. Everything else remains in the dumps, in limbo, unresolved.

This current rule is not the end. Employers will continue to fire Trans people, but reasons will be more obscure and circumspect, nothing as blatant as in the past telling you that they are firing you because you are Trans.

Pat Robertson said nothing of this Supreme Court ruling, just this tangential curt blip in his ‘NewsBreak’:

‘HHS overturned an ObamaCare rule that included Transgender individuals under Sex Discrimination. The new rule applies Sex Discrimination protections based on whether they are biologically Male or Female, NOT on how THEY define their own sexuality. LGBTQ groups say exclusive protections are needed for people seeking Sex Reassignment treatment and Transgender people. Con-servatives say Obama exceeded his legal authority in broadly interpreting Gender.’

– Pat Robertson, R-Drumpf (his CBN ‘700 Club’ TV show, 15 Jun 2020)

This is clearly Robertson’s message to his Christian Con-servative Evangelical Fundamentalists – it’s still Constitutional to be bigots and prejudicial against Trans and LGBT medical patients, or military (Drumpf’s ban remains), or housing (Carson’s order remains), etc.

These Republi-con Justices are faced with their own hypocrisy for now voting to support Trans Constitutional Rights and LGBT Constitutional Rights. Their entire careers were based upon rulings against Our Communities, Our Constitutional Rights. Their decision announced today means that every decision that they made in their past is absolutely, totally wrong. Every one of their cases must now be re-visited for the correct re-adjudication. These cases span decades in the past, will take decades to resolve.

There is no expectation of full compliance by your employer, your health care provider, your apartment manager. Any of them will find a loophole, you can bet that there are many hidden within this decision. They will now require you to file your own lawsuit against them to assert your Constitutional Rights – to go through their legal process, to go through state court, to go through federal court, to appeal your own individual case back to the Supreme Court, maybe a different Supreme Court wil rule in their favour.

As you know, two employers fired me on their accusation that I am F-M Transsexual:

– Forest Service: 1983

– State of Arizona: 2008.

They stole my career, my employability, my income. They stole my Constitutional ‘Life, Liberty, and Pursuit of Happiness’.

Lemme put this in cold, hard Capitalistic terms for you who think that way. The consequential loss of those two jobs can be valued into the millions of Dollars – lost pay, lost savings, lost retirement. They rendered my college education worthless. They stole three decades of my life’s work experiences. I lost my home and my possessions there, I lost my car; I can’t afford repairs and maintenance for my current home and automobile.

My story is merely one amongst tens of millions of others – some far less severe, some far more onerous. I am not demanding any medals. Our experiences must never happen to anyone again.

Those five Republi-con Supreme Court Justices devoted their lives campaigning against Trans Constitutional Rights, against LGBT Constitutional Rights.

The best that I expected from them was a cowardly non-decision punt to lower court to avoid all-out civil revolt.

They paint themselves into a legal corner with this decision, negating their entire careers.

Brace yourselves for an ugly Summer.

(https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2020/06/15/lgbt-service-members-are-allowed-to-be-out-and-proud-but-a-fear-of-repercussions-persists/)

LGBT service members are allowed to be out and proud, but a fear of repercussions persists

Meghann Myers

3 hours ago

446

Half a decade after the repeal of don’t ask, don’t tell, most lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender service members still felt reluctant to be open about their sexuality with their colleagues and chain of command, according to a study released in late May.

The study, published by the journal Sexuality Research and Social Policy, found that 59 percent of respondents did not feel comfortable being out at work, either because of career repercussions or because of the burden of being a token responsible for educating their peers.

“Taken together, LGBT service members seek a military in which disclosure will not subject them to negative career repercussions, burden them with feelings of differentness or expectations to teach others how to treat them, limit their ability to access needed resources for themselves or their family, and, ultimately, that their physical and personal integrity will not be endangered,” the authors, both military and academic researchers, found.

Pentagon officials did not immediate respond to a request for comment about the study.

And despite a Monday Supreme Court decision which ruled that workplace discrimination against LBGT employees violates the Civil Rights Act of 1964, that decision does not include service members.

(https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/19pdf/17-1618_hfci.pdf)

The simple clarity of reasoning in today’s SCOTUS ruling is a joy to read. Gorsuch and the majority never waiver from this logically unavoidable truth:

“When an employer fires an employee for being homosexual or transgender, it necessarily intentionally discriminates against that individual in part because of sex.”

(https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-53055937)

Supreme Court LGBT ruling: Why it is such a big deal

Anthony Zurcher

North America reporter

@awzurcher on Twitter

15 June 2020

The US Supreme Court over the past several decades has slowly but steadily expanded its protections of gay rights.

From striking down a Texas law that criminalised “sodomy” to legalising gay marriage across the nation, the direction of US jurisprudence seemed clear.

That was before Justice Anthony Kennedy, the author of several of those landmark decisions, retired and Donald Trump, with two appointments, gave the court a decidedly more conservative bent.

There was some concern among LGBT advocates that the newly composed court would use this year’s two high-profile gay and transgender rights cases to take the nation in a different direction.

Those concerns proved unfounded. Neil Gorsuch, one of the Trump appointees, wrote the sweeping decision that extended federal employment protections to gay and transgender workers.

He is proving to be more of an ideological wildcard than many on the left expected.

Top US court backs protection for LGBT workers

Chief Justice John Roberts, another Republican-appointed justice who has at times defied predictions, joined to give the ruling a comfortable 6-to-3 margin.

(https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-53055632)

US Supreme Court backs protection for LGBT workers

8 hours ago

The top court in the US has ruled that employers who fire workers for being gay or transgender are breaking the country’s civil rights laws.

In a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court said federal law, which prohibits discrimination based on sex, should be understood to include sexual orientation and gender identity.

The ruling is a major win for LGBT workers and their allies.

And it comes even though the court has become more conservative.

Lawyers for the employers had argued that the authors of the 1964 Civil Rights Act had not intended it to apply to cases involving sexual orientation and gender identity. The Trump administration sided with that argument.

But Judge Neil Gorsuch, who was nominated to the court by President Donald Trump, said acting against an employee on those grounds necessarily takes sex into account.

“An employer who fires an individual for being homosexual or transgender fires that person for traits or actions it would not have questioned in members of a different sex,” he wrote.

Members of the LGBT community across the US were celebrating on hearing the news.

(https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/06/15/supreme-court-denies-job-protection-lgbt-workers/4456749002/)

Supreme Court grants federal job protections to gay, lesbian, transgender workers

Richard Wolf

WASHINGTON – A divided Supreme Court further advanced the cause of LGBTQ rights Monday, ruling that a landmark civil rights law barring sex discrimination in the workplace applies to gay, lesbian and transgender workers.

The decision was written by Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch, President Donald Trump’s first nominee to the court. He was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and the court’s four liberal justices. Associate Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and Brett Kavanaugh dissented.

“An employer who fires an individual for being homosexual or transgender fires that person for traits or actions it would not have questioned in members of a different sex,” Gorsuch wrote. “Congress adopted broad language making it illegal for an employer to rely on an employee’s sex when deciding to fire that employee. We do not hesitate to recognize today a necessary consequence of that legislative choice: An employer who fires an individual merely for being gay or transgender defies the law.”

Trump commented on the decision Monday afternoon, suggesting it was surprising. “They’ve ruled. I’ve read the decision and some people were surprised but they’ve ruled and we live with their decision,” the president said, adding it was a “very powerful decision actually.”

The court’s ruling is likely to have a sweeping impact on federal civil rights laws barring sex discrimination in education, health care, housing and financial credit. Lawsuits pertaining to those laws are pending in lower courts, which are required to follow Supreme Court precedent.

The Trump administration’s brand new rule narrowing the legal definition of sex discrimination in health care to omit transgender people could be jeopardized.

The ruling does not help when it comes to discrimination against LGBTQ people in public accommodations, where discrimination based on sex is not barred by federal law. Thirty-one states do not prohibit discrimination in public accommodations on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.

(https://www.npr.org/2020/06/15/863498848/supreme-court-delivers-major-victory-to-lgbtq-employees)

Supreme Court Delivers Major Victory To LGBTQ Employees

June 15, 202010:19 AM ET

Nina Totenberg at NPR headquarters in Washington, D.C., May 21, 2019.

Transgender activist Aimee Stephens sits in her wheelchair outside the Supreme Court on Oct. 8, 2019, as the court holds oral arguments in cases dealing with workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation.

Updated at 5:52 p.m.

In a historic decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Monday that the 1964 Civil Rights Act protects gay, lesbian, and transgender employees from discrimination based on sex. The vote was 6-to-3, with Justice Neil Gorsuch, President Trump’s first appointee to the court, writing the majority opinion. The opinion was also joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and the court’s four liberal justices.

“Today,” said Gorsuch, “we must decide whether an employer can fire someone simply for being homosexual or transgender. The answer is clear.” Such discrimination is barred by the language in the 1964 law that bans discrimination in employment based on race, religion, national origin, or sex.

The decision is a huge victory for the LGBTQ community, and a major loss for the Trump administration, which had sided with employers in three cases before the court.

Two involved employees who sued after contending they had been fired because they were gay. One of them, Gerald Bostock, won awards for his work as the child welfare coordinator for Clayton County, Ga. He then joined a recreational softball league and, he told NPR last October, “within months I was fired for being gay. I lost my livelihood. I lost my medical insurance, and I was recovering from prostate cancer at the time. It was devastating.” The second case involved Donald Zarda, a now-deceased skydiving instructor who was gay.

The third case was brought by Aimee Stephens, who had worked for six years as a male funeral director in Livonia, Mich., but was fired two weeks after she told her boss that she was transgender and would be coming to work as a woman. She died earlier this year, but her case lived on.

Justice Gorsuch couched his opinion in terms of the text of the 1964 statute and its ban on discrimination because of sex.

“It is impossible to discriminate against a person for being homosexual or transgender without discriminating … based on sex,” he wrote. He gave the example of two employees attracted to men, one male the other female. “If the employer fires the male employee for no reason other than the fact that he is attracted to men,” but not the woman who is attracted to men, that is clearly a firing based on sex, he said.

(https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/supreme-court-rules-existing-civil-rights-law-protects-gay-lesbian-n1231018?cid=sm_npd_ms_fb_ma)

In landmark case, Supreme Court rules LGBTQ workers are protected from job discrimination

The decision said Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which makes it illegal for employers to discriminate because of a person’s sex, also covers sexual orientation and transgender status.

Supreme Court rules existing federal law forbids discrimination based on sexual orientation

JUNE 15, 202004:45

Breaking News

June 15, 2020, 2:05 PM UTC / Updated June 15, 2020, 9:01 PM UTC

By Pete Williams

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Monday that existing federal law forbids job discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or transgender status, a major victory for advocates of gay rights and for the nascent transgender rights movement — and a surprising one from an increasingly conservative court.

By a vote of 6-3, the court said Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which makes it illegal for employers to discriminate because of a person’s sex, among other factors, also covers sexual orientation and transgender status. It upheld rulings from lower courts that said sexual orientation discrimination was a form of sex discrimination.

Equally surprising was that the decision was written by President Donald Trump’s first Supreme Court appointee, Neil Gorsuch, who was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and the court’s four more liberal members to form a majority.

(https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/15/politics/supreme-court-lgbtq-employment-case/index.html)

Supreme Court says federal law protects LGBTQ workers from discriminationy

Devan Cole byline

By Ariane de Vogue and Devan Cole, CNN

Updated 12:22 PM ET, Mon June 15, 2020

Toobin: This is fascinating and enormously important

Washington (CNN)Federal civil rights law protects gay, lesbian and transgender workers, the Supreme Court ruled Monday.

The landmark ruling will extend protections to millions of workers nationwide and is a defeat for the Trump administration, which argued that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act that bars discrimination based on sex did not extend to claims of gender identity and sexual orientation.

The 6-3 opinion was written by Justice Neil Gorsuch and joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and the court’s four liberal justices.

“An employer who fires an individual for being homosexual or transgender fires that person for traits or actions it would not have questioned in members of a different sex. Sex plays a necessary and undisguisable role in the decision, exactly what Title VII forbids,” Gorsuch wrote.

(https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2020/06/new-york-city-prison-guards-laughed-didnt-help-transgender-woman-died-cell/)

NEWS

New York City prison guards laughed & didn’t help as a transgender woman died in her cell

“It was horrifying for the family to see this footage,” said David Shanies, the lawyer representing the inmate’s family. “They were completely unprepared for what they saw. They all broke into hysterical crying.”

By Daniel Villarreal Monday, June 15, 2020

Layleen Xtravaganza Cubilette-Polanco, transgender, dead, Riker’s Island, lawsuitLayleen Xtravaganza Cubilette-Polanco

The family of Layleen Xtravaganza Cubilette-Polanco, a 27-year-old transgender member of New York City’s legendary ballroom family, have filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the city following her death in solitary confinement on New York’s Rikers Island prison.

Cubilette-Polanco had been in prison since April 2019 after being unable to pay a $500 bail related to a 2017 prostitution charge. She was placed in isolation for 20 days after allegedly assaulting another inmate and fighting against a corrections officer.

(https://www.huffpost.com/entry/lgbtq-supreme-court-ruling-merkley-equality-act_n_5ee7c734c5b655d06c1e6b95)

POLITICS 06/15/2020 04:45 pm ET

Democrats Say Law Protecting LGBTQ Rights Still Needed Even After SCOTUS Victory

Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), a leading advocate for LGBTQ equality, says now is the time for Congress to extend all civil rights protections to LGBTQ people.

By Igor Bobic

In a landmark 6-3 decision on Monday, the Supreme Court held that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 protects LGBTQ employees from being discriminated against on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.

But for Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), a leading advocate for LGBTQ equality, the fight to ban discrimination on the basis of sex and gender identity isn’t over yet.

Although Merkley welcomed Monday’s decision, which was written by conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch, he said it’s long past time for Congress to amend the Civil Rights Act in full to give LGBTQ individuals the same civil rights protections as other Americans.

(https://www.advocate.com/commentary/2020/6/16/linking-trans-rights-gay-rights-wasnt-easy-sell-90s)

COMMENTARY

Linking Trans Rights to Gay Rights Wasn’t an Easy Sell in the ’90s

gay rights

A look at the winding road to Monday’s SCOTUS ruling that codified employment protections for all LGBTQ+ Americans.

BY RIKI WILCHINS

JUNE 16 2020 5:54 PM EDT

Even before GenderPAC, the original trans advocacy organization, was formed in 1995, trans activists were already fighting for workplace rights. At a 1994 meeting at the D.C. offices of the Human Rights Campaign, I got into a shouting match with both the group’s CEO at the time and gay civil rights icon Chai Feldblum. The argument was about the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, or ENDA, which HRC had spent millions trying to move forward in Congress.

ENDA did not include transgender or gender identity protections and HRC saw no reason to imperil a bill which was already hitting a solid wall of Republican (and sometimes Democratic) resistance by including something even less popular than gay employment rights.

The fight over ENDA became a two-decade pitched battle. Eventually HRC mulled a trans-inclusive version dubbed GENDA, but it never came to anything. As head of the newly launched GenderPAC, I eventually had long, impassioned arguments with the then-head of Lambda Legal, but they wanted little to do with defending transgender rights either.

Even the organization representing the national civil rights movement, the Leadership Conference for Civil Rights, never let GenderPAC join, because they just couldn’t “get” the issue.

So we fought back. Each year at National Gender Lobby Day in D.C., we would send 100 or so trans activists to the Hill to explain to members of Congress why trans rights had to be included in the legislation.

It was around that time Rep. Barney Frank opened a meeting in his office by yelling at us as we walked in the door, saying no one would support a bill that would allow transgender women to use the women’s restroom at work, or women’s showers in schools, and other facilities.

(https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2020/06/16/franklin-graham-supreme-court-lgbt-ruling-discrimination-titile-vii/)

Anti-LGBT+ evangelist Franklin Graham says the right to fire people for being LGBT+ is a ‘freedom our nation was founded on’

Nick Duffy June 16, 2020

Anti-LGBT preacher Franklin Graham of Samaritan’s Purse

Join PinkNews Pride for All Virtual March

Disgraced anti-LGBT+ preacher Franklin Graham is predictably raging in the wake of the Supreme Court’s ruling that people can’t be fired for being gay or transgender.

In a landmark six-to-three ruling on Monday (June 15), the court affirmed that LGBT+ people are entitled to protection from employment discrimination based on their sexual orientation and gender identity under Title VII, an existing sex-based civil rights law.

Naturally, the decision has not gone down well with the anti-LGBT+ evangelical lobby, who have spent much of the past four years plotting to stack the court with conservatives in order to roll back the tide on queer rights.

(https://www.them.us/story/colorado-trans-woman-killed-by-police-was-misgendered-by-local-media)

Jayne Thompson, a Colorado Trans Woman Killed by Police, Was Misgendered by Local Media

Jayne Thompson is one of 15 trans people to lose their lives to fatal violence in 2020.

BY NICO LANG

June 16, 2020

Lindsi Jane Thompson

The below article mentions acts of transphobic violence.

Jayne Thompson, a 33-year-old transgender woman, was shot and killed by a police officer on May 11. The shooting made her the 12th trans person to lose their life to fatal violence in 2020, but that fact remained unknown for weeks after Thompson was misgendered by police and local media.

The shooting took place in Orchard Mesa, Colorado after Thompson was reported unresponsive in the vicinity of Orchard Mesa Market, a local grocery store located along a busy intersection. According to details provided to local media by the Mesa County Sheriff’s Office, Thompson remained motionless for hours and did not respond when approached by passersby offering assistance.

(https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2020/06/colorado-state-trooper-killed-transgender-woman-authorities-told-media-shot-man/)

LGBTQ Nation

NEWS

A Colorado state trooper killed a transgender woman. Authorities told the media he shot a man.

Colorado State Patrol troopers are armed with tasers, but it doesn’t appear he even tried to use his before shooting her multiple times.

By Bil Browning Wednesday, June 17, 2020

A Colorado state trooper killed a transgender woman. Authorities told the media he shot a man.

Jayne Thompson was shot and killed by a Colorado State Patrol trooper last month, but it took until this week before it was disclosed that the officer had killed a transgender woman. For weeks, the Colorado State Police and local media misgendered her and said a man had been shot.

Thompson was killed the same week two Black transgender women: Dominique Rem’mie Fells of Pennsylvania and Riah Milton of Ohio. All three were slain as the country protested police brutality and racial justice with massive marches and rallies. Thompson is white.

(https://www.democracynow.org/2020/6/17/headlines/police_probe_hanging_death_of_black_trans_woman_tete_gulley_in_portland_oregon)

Police Probe Hanging Death of Black Trans Woman TeTe Gulley in Portland, Oregon

HEADLINEJUN 17, 2020

In Portland, Oregon, police have opened an investigation into the death of an African American trans woman named TeTe Gulley who was found hanging in a tree in late May. The local medical examiner ruled her death to be a suicide, but her family believes she may have been killed. Her death comes as federal authorities probe two recent hanging deaths of Black men in California. Meanwhile, in New York, a protest is scheduled for Saturday to demand a full investigation into the death of Dominique Alexander, a 27-year-old Black man who was found hanged in a Manhattan park last week. The local medical examiner’s office ruled the cause of his death to be suicide.

(https://www.out.com/transgender/2020/6/18/selena-reyes-hernandez-trans-woman-violently-killed-makes-number-17)

TRANSGENDER

Selena Reyes-Hernandez, Trans Woman Violently Killed, Makes Number 17

Selena Reyes-Hernandez is the 17th transgender person murdered this year. Orlando Perez was arrested for her murder.

The high school student who was arrested for the “super heinous crime,” smirked through his court appearance.

BY DONALD PADGETT

JUNE 18 2020 11:42 AM EDT

Chicago Police announced an arrest in the murder of Selena Reyes-Hernandez, 37, a transgender woman who was shot and killed in the early morning hours of May 31 in what police are describing as a “super heinous crime.” Police say Orlando Perez, an 18-year-old high school student, confessed to killing Reyes-Hernandez after learning she was transgender, and returning a short time later to shoot her lifeless body multiple times because he was so enraged.

“Selena is the 17th transgender person to have been murdered, thus far, in 2020, that we know of,” National Black Justice Coalition Executive Director David J. Johns said today in a statement. “This tragic taking of life feels especially painful as many people around the world risk their lives during a global pandemic to insist that all Black Lives Matter, and activists are working for increased protection and respect for transgender lives.”

(https://insideeko.com/maria-montano-death-maria-elizabeth-montano-dead-obituary/)

María Montaño Death | María Elizabeth Montaño Dead – Obituary

June 19, 2020

María Montaño Death – Dead: A great loss was made known to InsideEko.As friends and families of the deceased are mourning the passing of their loved and cherished María Montañoe.

Edzilla King of the Monsters/怪獣王エドジラ

@Edo_Granpa

The Doctor María Elizabeth Montaño, trans woman who was an advocate of a more inclusive Mexican Social Security was found dead after 10 days missing. 😔 Rest in Peace. https://twitter.com/escandalamx/status/1273812412995682304 …

Escándala

@escandalamx

🚨 #BreakingNews 🚨

La médica María Elizabeth Montaño del #IMSS @Tu_IMSS , mujer #Trans fue localizada sin vida luego de 10 días desaparecida 😔🕯️#QEPD #TransEsBello #Transfobia #Orgullo2020

5:04 AM – Jun 19, 2020

aran

@jinicito

SPREAD THIS ‼️

Dr. María Elizabeth Montaño Fernandez was a mexican trans woman who was found dead on a highway after being missing for 10 days #JusticiaParaElizabeth

8:13 AM – Jun 19, 2020

524 people are talking about this

pame ♡ ceo of rictor

@bc_leecomics

tw // trigger death transphobia

Today was found death the Dr. María Elizabeth Montaño, she worked at a #IMSS hospital and she advocated for LGBT+ rights and medical attention. She was reported missing since June 8 in Mexico City. Say her name #JusticiaParaElizabeth #QDEP

555

9:25 PM – Jun 18, 2020

393 people are talking about this

()

Jesf

(22 Jun 2020):

Thursday, June 25th at 6p Pacific time Intersex Connect: Intersex Inclusion in Trans Spaces: Connect with intersex community members, locally, and abroad. Discuss advocacy, rights, your journey, be seen!

If time allows we will watch this :

https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/you-can-t-undo-surgery-more-parents-intersex-babies-are-n923271

meeting.

Join Zoom Meeting

https://thecenterlv.zoom.us/j/91150450962?pwd=enA0dmNMcGhxSk5ETVZkeExNTmFJZz09

Meeting ID: 911 5045 0962

Password: 843692

Dial by your location

Meeting ID: 911 5045 0962

Find your local number: https://thecenterlv.zoom.us/u/aAzCkwEf2

Special Instructions:

You will be placed in digital waiting room until the host of the meeting let’s you in.

(https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/2020/06/trump-i-was-surprised-with-lgbtq-ruling-since-scotus-is-supposed-to-be-in-our-favor/)

The New Civil Rights Movement

NO IT’S NOT

Trump: ‘I Was Surprised’ With LGBTQ Ruling Since SCOTUS Is ‘Supposed to Be in Our Favor’

Published on June 23, 2020 at 09:14 AM ET

By David Badash

President Donald Trump says he was “surprised” with last week’s historic Supreme Court ruling on LGBTQ workers’ civil rights, suggesting he was “supposed” to win.

Trump made clear he viewed the decision as a loss, given that, he says, the nation’s highest court is supposed to “favor” him.

“I was surprised, I was surprised,” Trump told CBN’s David Brody Monday, who asked about the case that was decided by Trump’s first SCOTUS appointee. “Some people felt that it was a decision that they weren’t as surprised as I was. Yeah, I was surprised.”

The court ruled that LGBTQ workers are protected under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Trump has become the most anti-LGBTQ president in modern history.

(https://oc-media.org/one-dead-and-another-injured-in-attacks-on-transgender-women-in-baku/)

One dead and another injured in attacks on transgender women in Baku

24 June 2020

By OC Media

One woman is dead and another injured in separate attacks on transgender sex workers in Azerbaijan over the past week.

Aysu Mammadli, 28, was stabbed to death on 18 June in Baku, reportedly by a client. Another was reportedly stabbed a day later but escaped with her life.

Mammadli’s death was first reported by journalist Avaz Hafizli. Hafizli told OC Media that the Baku police informed him that Mammadli was stabbed 11 times in the head, neck, heart, and back at the home of a client in Baku’s Khatai District.

(https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2020/06/republican-slings-transphobic-insult-top-covid-doctor-doesnt-want-wear-mask/)

Republican slings transphobic insult at top COVID doctor because he doesn’t want to wear a mask

The Republican said he’s “angry” that he has to wear a mask, and that’s why he misgendered & deadnamed the state’s physician general.

By Alex Bollinger Thursday, June 25, 2020

A local Republican official is refusing to apologize for deadnaming and misgendering Pennsylvania Physician General Dr. Rachel Levine, who is leading the state’s fight against the coronavirus pandemic.

Instead, the Republican told Trib Live that people “just can’t appreciate humor anymore,” but he went on to say that he’s really mad at Dr. Levine for asking him to wear a mask.

(https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2020/06/26/trans-sex-worker-stabbed-killed-transgender-baku-azerbaijan-aysu-mammadli/)

A sex worker was stabbed 11 times and killed by a client. Her family wouldn’t collect her body from the morgue because she’s trans

VIC PARSONS JUNE 26, 2020

Join PinkNews Pride for All Virtual March

The family of a trans woman and sex worker killed by a client in a horrific attack refused to collect her body from the morgue or attend her funeral.

Aysu Mammadli, a sex worker, was stabbed 11 times by a client on June 18 and died of her injuries in Baku, Azerbaijan’s capital.

She was 28, and been disowned by her family for being trans.

(https://www.ncronline.org/news/people/indianapolis-archdioceses-new-school-policy-may-bar-transgender-students)

Indianapolis Archdiocese’s new school policy may bar transgender students

Jun 24, 2020

by Christopher White

One year after the Indianapolis Archdiocese attempted to strip a Jesuit school of its Catholic affiliation after its unwillingness to fire a gay teacher, the archdiocese has issued new guidelines warning that transgender students may not be allowed to enroll in its Catholic schools.

The document, obtained by NCR, was signed into effect on June 8, and distributed to internal archdiocesan employees on June 17.

The eight-page document, “Policy and Complementary Norms on Sexual Identity in School Ministries,” was signed by Archbishop Charles Thompson and Chancellor Annette Lentz and draws heavily on a controversial 2019 document from the Vatican’s Congregation for Catholic Education, “Male and Female He Created Them: Towards a Path of Dialogue on the Question of Gender Theory in Education.”

While the policy recommends a “case by case” approach to dealing with questions of sexual identity, it notes that students experiencing confusion regarding their sexual identity may be admitted to Catholic schools if they follow church teaching, yet it warns that “any student whose ‘gender’ has been legally changed from their biological sex, or who has chemically and/or surgically altered their given biology, may not be eligible for enrollment.”

(https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2020/06/taxpayer-funded-catholic-schools-given-secret-edict-ban-kids-dont-conform-gender-norms/)

Taxpayer funded Catholic schools given secret edict to ban kids who don’t conform to gender norms

The Archdiocese of Indianapolis has become on the most viciously anti-LGBTQ in the nation, but this is a new low.

By Bil Browning Friday, June 26, 2020

The Archdiocese of Indianapolis is one of the most viciously anti-LGBTQ in the nation, and new leaked internal documents show that its using its Catholic school system to actively harm gender-nonconforming youth. The new directive, emailed to administrators last week, tells the schools not to include its anti-transgender policy in any faculty or parent/student handbooks.

The 67 schools governed by the Catholic archdiocese have received approximately $40 million in taxpayer dollars in state education funding, even as they continue to discriminate against LGBTQ students, faculty, and staff.

(https://www.advocate.com/crime/2020/6/29/brayla-stone-17-year-old-transgender-girl-found-dead-little-rock)

Brayla Stone, 17-Year-Old Transgender Girl, Found Dead in Little Rock

Police ruled her death a homicide as local news outlets refuse to use her real name.

BY DAVID ARTAVIA

JUNE 29 2020 1:38 PM ED

On June 25, the body of a 17-year-old transgender girl was found inside a car in Sherwood, Ark. Local police are investigating it as a homicide.

According to reports, Brayla Stone was discovered in a car that was parked on a walking path off of Gap Creek Drive. Upon arriving at the scene, officers discovered she was dead inside the vehicle and immediately transported her body to the Arkansas State Crime Lab.

No further details have been released about Stone’s cause of death, or if there were any visible wounds that might indicate how she was killed.

Local news outlets deadnamed Stone in their early reports, which is why it took several days for LGBTQ+ media to report the story. Furthermore, Stone’s family has reportedly made an effort to withhold her trans identity from the public.

According to a recent update on Fox 16, one of the first outlets to report the story, they received “several calls and emails” from activists urging them to use Stone’s real name. But after consulting with Stone’s family, the outlet reported the family “have asked us to use the victim’s birth name in our reporting.”

A social media user called @tapnseason later took to Instagram and posted a picture of $100 bills, claiming he was paid to murder Stone, writing “zipped em for 5k. Money Well Spent.”

However, authorities have not confirmed if @tapnseason was in any way related to Stone’s murder or if their post was only meant to taunt trans activists. The post has since been deleted.

Stone’s death arrives against the backdrop of rigorous protests across the world, including this weekend’s Queer Liberation march in New York City, which attracted upwards of 15,000 demonstrators calling for an end to Black trans murders and police brutality.

A Change.org petition was created demanding justice for Stone.

A candle light vigil will be held today at 630pm CDT at Boyle Park in Little Rock, Ark., organized by the Center for Artistic Revolution.

TAGS: CRIME, TRANSGENDER, HATE CRIMES

(https://atlantatribune.com/2020/06/29/statement-on-tragic-murder-of-brayla-stone/)

NEWS

8 transgender men and women killed in 7 days

ByAtlanta TribuneonJune 29, 2020

NEW YORK — Brayla Stone, a 17-year-old Black trans girl, was murdered in Sherwood, Arkansas near Little Rock on June 25. According to friends she enjoyed experimenting with music, some of which she uploaded to her personal YouTube channel. Her killer has yet to be identified and members of the media continue to discredit her — using the wrong pronouns and refusing to honor that Brayla Stone should be remembered as she showed up in the world. In response to this tragic news, Executive Director of the National Black Justice Coalition David J. Johns released the following statement:

“Brayla Stone is the 8th transgender person killed in the last seven days. Brayla Stone was seventeen years young when someone murdered her because we live in a society where it is not yet explicit that when we say BlackLivesMatter we mean all Black lives, which includes Black trans women and girls.

“Brayla Stone was seventeen when she was murdered. The average life expectancy for a Black trans woman in the United States is around 35 years of age and in 42 states and the District of Columbia it is still legal to murder a trans person under the ‘gay panic defense.’ A man has bragged about killing Brayla for $5,000 on Snapchat saying it was ‘money well spent.’

“In the last two weeks the current occupant of the oval office signed an executive order revoking health care discrimination protection for trans people. In the last two weeks the SCOTUS rendered a decision affirming the right for trans people to be able to work without being fired for actual or perceived sexual identity, gender orientation, and gender expression—legal protections that don’t mean as much if trans people aren’t hired and when Black trans girls and women are murdered with impunity. This must end.”

(https://www.bet.com/news/national/2020/06/30/brayla-stone-found-dead.html?cid=facebook)

Black Transgender Teen Found Dead In Car Killed In Apparent Hit

Police have ruled 17-year old Brayla Stone’s death a homicide.

Published Yesterday

Written by Paul Meara

The body of Brayla Stone, a 17-year-old transgender teen, was found dead inside her car in Sherwood, Arkansas on June 25. Local police are investigating it as a homicide.

According to Fox 16, Stone was discovered in a car that was parked on a walking path, and upon arriving on scene, police discovered her body inside the vehicle. She was immediately transported to the Arkansas State Crime Lab.

Stone’s cause of death has yet to be released by authorities.

During initial reporting of Stone’s death, local news outlets used her birth name. Fox 16 recently updated their story after receiving “several calls and emails” from activists urging them to use Stone’s real name. However, after consulting with Stone’s family, the outlet reported that the family “have asked us to use the victim’s birth name in our reporting.”

RELATED: “Brayla was someone who alw17 Rikers Staffers Disciplined Over Trans Woman Layleen Polanco’s Death

A social media user posted on Instagram a picture of $100 bills, claiming payment for the murder of Stone, writing “zipped em for 5k. Money Well Spent.” Authorities have not confirmed if this person was actually related in any way to Stone’s murder or if the post was only meant to taunt trans activists. The post has since been deleted.

A candlelight vigil was held on Monday night (June 29), which was organized by the Center for Artistic Revolution.

A Change.org petition was created to demand justice for Brayla Stone which already has over 157,000 signatures at the time of publication.

(https://www.gaycitynews.com/black-transgender-teen-found-dead-near-little-rock/)

Black Transgender Teen Found Dead Near Little Rock

Posted on June 30, 2020

By Matt Tracy

Brayla Stone, a 17-year-old transgender teen girl, was found dead inside a vehicle on the outskirts of Little Rock, Arkansas, on June 25 in a disturbing case that has raised some suspicions of a possible murder-for-hire plot.

Brayla Stone’s body was discovered in a car parked on a walking path in Sherwood, just northeast of Little Rock, and local news outlets are reporting that the case is being treated as a homicide. A change.org petition calling for justice for Stone, which has drawn more than 160,000 signatures, states that “her killer boasted about the murder on social media saying that he was payed [sic] $5,000 for the crime.”

Multiple news outlets have pointed to screenshots of an unverified Instagram post that was allegedly posted and then deleted. The post showed a pile of cash, including $100 bills and $50 bills, and that Instagram user allegedly wrote, “I zipped em for 5K Money Well Spent,” with laughing emojis.

It is not clear how the author of the petition or the news outlets referring to the Instagram post reached conclusions that the social media post could be tied to Stone’s death. The screenshots of the post did not mention Stone’s name and there was no clear connection between Stone and the Instagram user.

The case became even messier when Stone became the victim of deadnaming in the media. The local Fox affiliate misgendered her, prompting a wave of complaints from folks who were upset that the victim was deadnamed. The Fox affiliate then doubled down and continued to deadname Stone after her family asked the outlet to refer to her birth name.

More than a dozen transgender individuals — predominantly Black transgender women — have suffered violent deaths in the United States this year alone. Stone’s death came just weeks after a Black transgender man, Kristian Rouse, was brutally beaten at his apartment in Bakersfield, California, but said he does not remember the attack. He was forced to spend approximately a month on a ventilator in an intensive care unit and continues to suffer from injuries he sustained during the attack.

Additional news – Brayla Stone:

(https://www.advocate.com/crime/2020/6/29/brayla-stone-17-year-old-transgender-girl-found-dead-little-rock)

(https://youtu.be/FllNSJcXBIw)

(https://www.out.com/transgender/2020/7/01/merci-mack-4th-black-trans-killing-pride-month-2020)

Merci Mack Is the 4th Black Trans Killing in Pride Month 2020

Merci Mack is the 4th Black trans woman killed during Pride this year. Her body was found in Dallas suffering from a gunshot wound to the head. Her family insists on deadnaming her.

Mack joins Brayla Stone, Dominique Fells, and Riah Milton who were also violently killed in recent weeks.

BY DONALD PADGETT

JULY 01 2020 12:09 PM

The body of a 22-year-old Black transgender woman was discovered in a Dallas parking lot yesterday morning. A passerby found Merci Mack unconscious and suffering from an apparent gunshot wound to the head. She is the 4th Black transgender woman killed during Pride, and the 19th trans person violently killed in 2020.

“Another Black transgender woman has had her life stolen from her,” Tori Cooper, HRC director of community engagement for the Transgender Justice Initiative, said in a statement. “We cannot become numb to the fact that our community has learned of more killings of transgender and gender non-conforming people in the past few weeks than HRC has ever tracked in the past seven years. Her friends say that Merci Mack was a young, upbeat soul who deserved to experience a full life. HRC is mourning with Merci’s loved ones and are calling for a full, thorough investigation into her death.”

“What do you do when you don’t have the capacity to wrap your head around the pain and trauma a community of people continues to experience and you know that your feelings aren’t half of what’s required to show up as a member of that community?” asked David Johns, Executive Director of the National Black Justice Coalition in a statement. “You continue the work and insist that others, who purport to believe that #BlackLivesMatter, also get engaged.”

There are no reported eyewitnesses to Mack’s murder, and police are asking for help from the public. Residents in the area reported hearing gunshots around 5:00 a.m. yesterday morning, but apparently did not call 911 according to phone logs. A passerby did call to report the discovery of an unconscious Mack at 6:15 a.m., but the 22-year-old was later pronounced dead at the scene.

The murder in Dallas is part of an ongoing epidemic of violence against transgender folks. The body of 17-year-old Brayla Stone was found in a suburb of Little Rock, Arkansas, last week. A man claiming to be her murderer bragged on social media he had been paid $5,000 for the hit. Prior to that, Riah Milton was shot and killed during a robbery attempt in Ohio. Police arrested three people in connection with her death. The dismembered body of Dominique Rem’mie Fells was earlier found alongside the Schuylkill River in Philadelphia. Police are treating her case as a homicide.

Often, these deaths can go unreported because of the brutality of the murders or because of misidentifying the victims. Initial police and media reports misgendered Fells as authorities spent several days trying identify the remains. Mack’s family has also insisted upon using her deadname.

RELATED | Selena Reyes-Hernandez, Trans Woman Violently Killed, Makes Number 17

Tags: TRANSGENDER, CRIME, HATE CRIME, TRANS WOMEN

(https://www.americanprogress.org/press/statement/2020/07/01/487003/statement-proposed-hud-rule-change-guts-protections-transgender-people/)

LGBTQ RIGHTS

STATEMENT: Proposed HUD Rule Change Guts Protections for Transgender People

Date: July 1, 2020

Contact: Adam Peck

Email: gro.ssergorpnacirema@kcepa

Washington, D.C. — Today’s announcement by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) previews a proposed rule change that guts protections for transgender people under the Equal Access Rule, leaving them vulnerable to being denied shelter and forced out onto the streets.

The Equal Access Rule protects LGBTQ people from discrimination in HUD-funded services, and a 2016 update explicitly protects transgender people from discrimination in homeless shelters. Before these protections went into effect, a study conducted by the Center for American Progress and the Equal Rights Center found that only 30 percent of shelters tested were willing to appropriately house transgender people, and 1 in 5 outright refused to provide them with shelter.

Despite the importance of these protections, with today’s announced rule change proposal, the Trump administration signaled its intention to allow individual taxpayer-funded shelters to cherry-pick what federal requirements they are willing to comply with and decide whether or not they want to safely house transgender people, all under the false pretenses of religious liberty and concern for women’s safety.

Sharita Gruberg, senior director for the LGBTQ Research and Communications Project at CAP, released the following statement:

Every American should have access to safe shelter free of discrimination. The protections of the Fair Housing Act and the Equal Access Rule are more important now than ever. The government’s enforcement should be aligned with the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision that sex discrimination includes sexual orientation and gender identity.

Instead, the Trump administration is targeting transgender people for discrimination. Giving shelters a license to discriminate against transgender people would be wrong at any time, but to do so in the midst of a pandemic and an economic crisis constitutes an act of wanton cruelty.

This proposed rule risks the lives and safety of people who are transgender or gender nonconforming, whose ability to obtain lifesaving housing services will be up to the whims and potential biases of individual providers

(https://planettransgender.com/trans-woman-merci-pooda-mack-murdered-in-dallas/)

(https://youtu.be/uALAF0qYXBY)

Trans Woman Merci ‘Pooda’ Mack Murdered in Dallas

Merci Mack was found Tuesday making her 4th trans person killed during Pride giving Dallas the distinction as the murder capital of the US.

Added by Kelli Busey on July 2, 2020.

Tags: Merci ‘Pooda’ Mack, Oak Cliff Texas, TDoR2020

Merci Mack is the fourth black trans woman murdered during Pride 2020.

The body of transgender woman Merci ‘Pooda’ Mack was found in the parking lot of the Rosemont apartment complex, which is located at 3015 E Ledbetter Drive on Tuesday, June 30, the last day of the Pride Month. Police said that Merci Mack had been shot twice.

According to reports, Miss Mack is the 4th Black Transgender woman murdered during Pride month this year.

#SayHerName Brayla Stone, Dominique “Rem’mie” Fells, Riah Milton, and Merci ‘Pooda’ Mack

Miss Mack is the 18th trans person murdered so far this year according to the Human Rights Campaign.

There was a delay establishing her identity as police deadnamed and misgendered her until her family stepped forward and confirmed her trans status, reported out.com

Texas has had more transgender homicides than any other state in the past five years, and nearly half of those deaths were in Dallas, according to The Dallas Morning News.

This is due in large part to attacks from far-right religious establishments like the Dallas First Baptist Church and demagogues such as H.I.M. HEBREW ISRAELITE MILK who posted an abhorrent youtube video. That individual stated in the first moments of that video that he expected it to be taken down. Please report that video to Youtube as hate speech.

Thank you to the Resources who contribute to this page. Acknowledgement and credit goes to those who create their social media content, essays, and images.

Additional Resources:

Lynn Conway’s home page. She has been compiling research and documentation from most every angle of Transition, surgeries, regrets, celebrations for at least 20 years.

(https://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/conway.html)

Trans Roadmap.

(tsroadmap.com)

When to start medical Transition for your Trans child.

(https://video.vice.com/en_us/video/inside-the-lives-of-transgender-children/5a564a36177dd4404f7f2661?jwsource=cl)

Inter-sex children don’t need to be ‘fixed’.

(https://images.app.goo.gl/Sg8Pf2pKah6D3kCA9)

A tough path for Trans youth.

(https://www.webmd.com/sex-relationships/news/20200115/for-trans-youth-a-tough-path-to-gender-harmony)

Stories of Courageous.

(https://youtu.be/5oaHLFnkWUw)

We ALL need to remember our history. We would not have Pride without the Brown and Black Trans women of the Stonewall Riots.

(https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/remembering-stonewall-riots-49-years-211502950.html)

Vic DiBitetto: love your LGBT people.

(https://www.facebook.com/126766354166271/posts/1583116605197898/)

Violence Against the Transgender and Gender Non-Conforming Community in 2020.

(https://www.hrc.org/resources/violence-against-the-trans-and-gender-non-conforming-community-in-2020)

(https://youtu.be/0Nxh7MXRC40)

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Nxh7MXRC40)

Drumpf orders employers to fire LGBT employees:

(https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-administration-fire-lgbtq/)

Drumpf’s rules against medical care for Trans patients.

(https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/the-trump-administrations-hateful-message-on-health-care-for-transgender-americans/amp)

MSNBC discussion on Drumpf’s elimination of health care for LGBT.

(https://youtu.be/WVwn6Fa2NKs)

Pat Robertson rants against the Trans Community.

(https://www1.cbn.com/video/700club/2020/06/17/the-700-club-june-17-2020?show=700club)

Drumpf will cram a Supreme Court nominee through before the election – only a minion of ideological purity devoted to his personal interests – terrible implications for the Supreme Court.

(https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-john-roberts-abortion-supreme-court/2020/06/30/34513f92-bae8-11ea-80b9-40ece9a701dc_story.html)

Reddit bans r/The_Donald as it updates its policies about hate speech.

(https://fortune.com/2020/06/29/reddit-bans-r-the-donald-hate-speech-policies-update/)

‘Gender Critical’ – Some not-so-light reading.

(https://overland.org.au/2019/05/what-is-gender-critical-anyway-on-essentialism-and-transphobia/comment-page-1/)

Humour – teen daughter tells Trans ‘mom’ that she needs to wear a bra because, um, things are showing.

(https://www.facebook.com/100005120503701/posts/1565842976929704/)

Media Bias Chart. Know the slant in news.

(https://www.adfontesmedia.com/)

Thank you for visiting today, Dear Reader.

There will be more later.

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Slim and Me

The Gods of Mount Olympos must be watching

‘Pride Month 2020 – How Did We Do?’

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