A team of researchers at Harvard University have found wide-spread anti-Latino bias (PDF) among election local election officials nation-wide. Specifically, the researchers found that local election officials were less likely to respond to voting-related questions from Latinos, and the quality of responses to Latinos was significantly lower than for Whites.

(n/t Political Wire)

It’s been big fun the last few days watching Slate’s Distinguished Neolib Bidness ‘Splainer Matt Yglesias get his ass handed to him by a host of left commentators, from  David Atkins  to Corey Robin.

Ashley Del Valle, 38, decided to take a vacation from her home in Queens, New York to sunny Savannah, GA.

Apparently that was her first mistake.

Del Valle has been living as a woman for 20 year and had her name legally changed in 2002. She and her cousin decided a trip to Savannah would be fun. They were wrong.

On Saturday Night, April 6, Ashley chose a sheer blouse to wear on their nightlife adventure for that day. Mistake number two.

Del Valle, who appeared on an episode of TLC's "NY Ink," said she and her cousin were club hopping and hit popular gay club Club One as well as other clubs before stopping in Ellis Square to decide where to go to eat.

She said many people recognized her from the TV show and she was posing for pictures with tourists.

--GA Voice

Early that morning (about 1am) she was arrested for indecent exposure by a Savannah Chatham Metro Police officer. The police report claims that her breasts were exposed. She disputed the arrest, which earned her a second charge of disorderly conduct.

She was then taken to the jail, where a she was examined by a nurse, who discovered she was still "technically male." So she was placed in a holding cell in the men's portion of the jail. For two days she was referred to as "a thing" and otherwise harassed.

I felt like I just wasn't being treated like a human being.

--Del Valle

The John L. Young Women's Shelter is located three blocks from the US Capitol. The shelter is operated by New Hope Ministries, Inc of Woodbridge, VA. Not surprisingly the shelter is operated under a city-funded contract. And in the District of Columbia that usually means federal money is involved somewhere along the line.

A lawsuit was filed against the shelter on April 5 and a complaint was filed with the DC Office of Human Rights on March 22 by two transgender women who charge that employees of the shelter said they could not be admitted because of their transgender status.

An attorney with the DC Trans Coalition filed the lawsuit on behalf of Lakiesha Washington, a homeless woman who attempted to spend the night in the shelter on April 3. The lawsuit says at that time a discriminatory act took place.

A female employee at the shelter asked Washington, "Are you a woman or a man?" Washington replied, "I am a transgender woman." The employee asked Washington if she had any documentation (presumably a court ordered legal name change or proof of gender reassignment surgery) and Washington said that she did not. The employee then told Washington,

We thought everything had been settled in Sweden.

Apparently we were premature.

Two members of the Swedish Parliament are warning the government that forced sterilization of transpeople must continue, else the government will have to recognize a third gender or third sex.

And everyone knows it would be wrong to have three because…THREE!

Conservative MPs Tuve Skånberg and Annelie Enochson, Christian Democrats, have written an op-ed in the Christian newspaper Dagen in which they offer a counter-proposal to the government plan to remove requirements that transpeople be sterilized before undergoing gender reassignment procedures.

The [government] proposal would have far-reaching consequences. The key consequence being that Sweden would introduce the possibility of creating a third gender, called ‘person’ in the law books – men who give birth.

--Tuve Skånberg and Annelie Enochson