North Carolina

North Carolina Tea Party Governor Slashes Unemployment Benefits

          Newly elected North Carolina governor, Pat McCrory signed into a law a bill slashing the amount and length of time that an individual can collect unemployment benefits. The legislation will go into effect July 1, 2013. Currently, an individual is eligible for a maximum amount of $535 for 26 weeks. The new legislation reduces the maximum benefit to $350 and cuts the number of weeks of benefit eligibility to between 12 to 20 weeks. Currently, North Carolina has the nation’s fifth highest unemployment rate. The national unemployment rate is 7.9% while North Carolina’s is 9.2%.

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Local skirmishes for equality

Nomi Michaels Devereaux had walked from the Jewel Osco grocery store in Lakeview, IL with her boyfriend. They stopped and she waited while he went into a friend's home to pick up a game system. While she was waiting, and holding six bags of groceries, she was approached by police who removed the groceries and handcuffed her. Then they took her to a police station, where she was forced to remove her bra in front of men…who then mocked her.

Later she learned she had been arrested for solicitation.

She responded in a way that few transwomen do. She reported the incident. That report eventually resulted in a new general order for Chicago police. The order, among other things, says that transpeople should not be subjected to searches any more frequently…or more invasively…than nontransgender people. It also insists that transgender identity is not by itself evidence that a crime is occurring.

The phenomenon of police wrongly assuming that transwomen are engaged in sex work is known as walking while trans.

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