students

Gender Prison: Erasing transgender

The Privacy for All Students campaign is inappropriately named because transgender students are excluded from the "all." But the group, which began in California to fight for the repeal of AB 1266 (a bill passed to ensure education equity for transgender students) and has already gained the support of the National Organization for Marriage, is gaining more support around the country from conservative groups around the country. Most recently throwing their support behind the repeal is the Pennsylvania Family Institute.

Brandon McGinley of the PFI has penned a screed entitled Saving Our Locker Rooms, in which he details the dangerous "[e]fforts to remove gender distinctions from public facilities".

In my home state of Pennsylvania, official legal guidance published by the city of Philadelphia on its gender identity ordinance declares that discomfort with sharing personal facilities with those of the opposite biological sex stems from “unsubstantiated fears and discriminatory attitudes” that employers are bound by law to attempt to “eliminate.”

--McGinley

So McGinley proposes what he claims are "cogent, rational arguments against non-discrimination laws" that would benefit transgender people. I do not think the word "rational" means what he think it means.

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Gender Prison: NOM dumps protecting marriage in order to attack transgender kids

NOM, the self-proclaimed National Organization for Marriage, has decided to branch out. Not content to stand up for the downtrodden Americans who believe in marriage inequality, Brian Brown and his minions have decided they need to interfere with the lives and liberties of transgender students in California.

NOM has decided that treating transgender people equally in public schools just won't do. So they have set their sights on attacking transgender teenagers.

As a 501(c)(4), the organization has to have a mission statement, which is the following:

The National Organization for Marriage (NOM) is a nonprofit organization with a mission to protect marriage and the faith communities that sustain it.

At least, that was the Mission Statement as recorded in 2010 by PewResearch's Religion & Public Life Project.

While its name may suggest it is a one-trick operation, the National Organization for Marriage has serious range when it comes to being completely awful. Far from just focusing its advocacy and lobbying work to deny gay people equal marriage and adoption rights, NOM also uses its (marginal) political heft to do things like oppose basic protections for transgender teenagers.

--Katie McDonough, Salon

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Bathroom Panic and the Fear Monger's Shoppe

WND has cast rights for transgender students as a War on Children. A video, produced by WND, featuring an asshole named Molotov Mitchell, mocks the new California law to protect transgender students as "comprehensive bathroom reform."

The video never once uses the word "transgender," preferring to monger "bathroom panic", while casting transgender kids as "horny adolescent boys" sneaking into girls restrooms and locker rooms.

Thanks to this law, it's also legal for horny adolescent boys to join the girls' wrestling team if they so desire, to stand around in their locker rooms while they change, and even shower with them if they want. What a brilliant way to protect children!

Finally, at K through 8 schools, middle school boys can now go into little girls' bathrooms. What could possibly go wrong? I think we all know what can - and will - go wrong.

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Hate on television

Nothing endangers more transgender people than hate given media airtime.

We have come to expect it from Fox News. Fox and Friends invited Michelle Malkin to help hate on the new law in California which legally entitles transgender students to access facilities and programs appropriate to their gender.

The hosts of “Fox and Friends” are so mad that transgender students in California are now legally entitled to use the bathroom that corresponds to their gender identity. And they are also so confused about what being transgender even means! (No one will explain it to them, either. No one! Not a single segment producer or Fox News intern or even the Internet!)

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Transgender Hero #5: Ashton Lee

Manteca High School junior Ashton Lee hand-delivered petitions. with nearly 6000 names to Governor Brown, urging him to sign AB 1266, which would give transgender students equal access to school programs and facilities.

Lee is a young transman. He testified in Sacramento during the legisiative hearings on the bill. Manteca High School has 5 openly transgender students.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

California law already prohibits discrimination in education, but transgender students are still unfairly excluded from physical education, athletic teams, and other school activities and facilities.  This exclusion negatively impacts students' ability to succeed in school and graduate with their class.

--Melissa Goodman, an attorney with the ACLU of California

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Departments of Education and Justice weigh in on restroom, locker room usage for trans students

Arcadia, CA is situated in Los Angeles County, in the San Gabriel Valley, 13 miles east of downtown Los Angeles. It is probably best known for being the site of the Santa Anita racetrack, although it is also home to the Los Angeles County Arboretum and Botanic Garden.

In 2010 Bloomberg named Arcadia as one of the Best Places to Raise Your Kids for the second straight year. I guess that was "unless your kid is transgender."

On Tuesday the Arcadia school board unanimously passed a resolution to accept an agreement with the US Departments of Education and Justice to end an investigation into allegations of discrimination against a transgender student in a complaint filed in October 2011. The resolution agreement is here.

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