May 02 2009

Friday Philosophy: steps backward

I wandered into a diary the other day, written by someone from New Hampshire who disapproved of gay marriage.  He calls himself a “Libertarian-leaning conservative,” which in his case apparently means that he is in favor of personal liberties, except for GLBT people.

I’ve experienced the very definition of mixed feelings about the news out of New Hampshire the past week.  I think it was fabulous that the state senate voted 13-11 in favor of marriage equality.  After reconciliation between the two houses, New Hampshire-style, it will be up to their governor to either veto it or not.

So that was a huge positive.  Most people missed the negative.  Totally missed it.

The same day it passed the marriage equality bill, this august body rejected equal protection under the law for transgender people by a vote of 24-0.

Yes, you see that correctly:  24-0.  Not even the bills sponsor’s voted for it.

From the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force:

We salute the courage and commitment of the New Hampshire Senate for doing the right thing by passing the marriage equality measure. At the same time, we are incredibly disappointed that the transgender nondiscrimination and hate crimes bill, which would grant simple protection from employment and housing discrimination to transgender people, was defeated by the Senate. We hope the New Hampshire legislature will soon take up the issue of discrimination and hate crimes against transgender people again and vote to pass such critical protections.

—The Task Force

From the Human Rights Campaign

{crickets}

It’s enough to make a person suspicious.  I don’t like conspiracy theories.  But one just has to wonder if the thirteenth vote for marriage equality came as part of some deal involving the denial of trans rights.  That’s some of the word I’ve seen voiced by some of my trans sisters.  I personally like to withhold my judgment about such “coincidences, ” but history is on the side of those who have the suspicions.

So anyway, I asked this diarist about his views about the transgender bill, formally named AN ACT adding certain terms regarding non-discrimination to the laws.  The media and the other side collaborated to call it, informally, “the bathroom bill.”  Th sole outcome of the passage of the bill would have been to add “gender identity or expression” to the existing Law Against Discrimination.

But those who hate us believe that equality in public accommodation would include us using public restrooms, which they couldn’t tolerate, so we should be punished by not having protections in employment, housing, or from hate crimes either.

So I questioned Mr. Dude about his opinion about that bill.

MD:  I don’t know much of anything about transgender issues – from what I know, regarding policy, I am against making laws for transgenders, because it is my understanding that someone would be able to claim they were without proof.  Is that correct?  I honestly have no idea.

My religious views, of course, you can guess easily.

Insert imagined religious view:

Legitimizing perversity is a fetish for some legislators.  New Hampshire House Bill 415, dubbed by conservatives, “the Bathroom Bill,” is an effort to protect the rights of people who voluntarily mutilate themselves in the futile pretense that they have changed their God-given gender to another one.

—Brother André Marie, Catholicism.org

Me:  I’m a transsexual woman.  You really think I should be arrested for using a woman’s restroom?

Do you really think that transsexual people have sex changes so they can molest women and children in public restrooms?  Really?

MD:  No, no, no, sorry.

I meant that people would claim to be transsexual, wouldn’t be, and take advantage of laws designed to benefit transsexuals.  Sorry for the misunderstanding.  I do not think transsexuals want that for dishonorable purposes.

Imagined purposes:

Rep. Joseph Hagan said he voted against it as a conservative who feels gender issues, “are one small facet of a much broader psychiatric illness.” He also questions the state’s reliance on a Human Rights Commission, saying it’s really a government tribunal that denies people their day in court.

He said that if transsexuals get more rights, others will lose them.

You make a really good girl

As girls go

Still kind of look like a guy

I never thought to wonder why

If I could pull this off

Would I know for certain

The real situation

Behind the curtain

So beautiful

damsel in distress

Not exactly natural

Stunning none the less

What happened to you?

To make you more girl than girls are

Would you ever show or tell

Cause you’re so good so far

You make a really good girl

As girls go

Let’s chronicle

The dark side of the life

Did you ever keep the date

With the steel side of the knife

Doesn’t matter to me

Which side of the line

You happen to be

At any given time

You make a really good girl

As girls go

–Suzanne Vega

HeyMikey chimed in to help out:  “Benefit” transsexuals?

I don’t think there are any laws under consideration to give special benefits to transsexuals.  Just laws to require that they be treated like everybody else.

MD:  OH! I’ve misunderstood the issue the whole time.

I’m an idiot (obviously). I thought the debate was if a pre-transition person claimed to be a transsexual, they’d get the benefits of a law for transsexuals.

I guess I don’t understand – if a man goes into the men’s room as a post-transition man, is that illegal or something?  I truly know nothing about transsexual issues.

And we come to the crux of it.  MD does not see post-transition transwomen as actually being women.

He didn’t respond to any of my other comments:

Me:  What benefits do you think there are to being transsexual?  Being disowned by one’s family and abandoned by one’s friends?  Being ostracized by one’s community?  Fired from one’s job?  Disallowed to be a teacher?  Assaulted by total strangers?  Attacked from the local pulpits?

Gee, wouldn’t want non-transsexual people claiming to be transsexual to steal all our hard won rights.

Passing the bill now would only worsen the situation for transsexuals because of the way the bill was portrayed.

—Sen. Martha Fuller Clark, D-Portsmouth

The campaign to defeat it “embodies at its very core the ugly and misplaced prejudice we had all hoped this bill would prevent,” Clark said.

So, I guess there is the answer to the lack of any votes for the bill.  There is fear that passing the bill now would mean even more discrimination against transfolk than already exists…

…even though the discrimination that exists at present is total.

And it is hard to know where to go from here…if that many people accept the fact that transwomen are nothing but perverts, peeping toms, rapists and child molesters, just looking for an opportunity…or even that they only accept that we should be denied equality because there are other people who are those things.


Stain

Mistaken

They have said

we are confused

about our gender

making up stories

for illicit purposes

But we know

who we are

not playing games

but living lives

for the better

It is they

who are confused

have forgotten how

to be human

because of hatred

–Robyn Serven

–May 1, 2009

20 comments

Skip to comment form

    • Robyn on May 2, 2009 at 00:01
      Author
    • #

    …which is normal for anytime a semester just ended, like now.  But that’s just physical.  Rest can cure that.

    I am also so tired of the lack of understanding about who we are.  I wish someone would show me one case of a transwoman raping a woman or molesting a child, in a restroom or out of it.  I wish someone would show me one case of someone pretending to be a transwoman committing such an act.  Or even of someone not a transwoman pretending to be one in order to use women’s restrooms.’

    Nothing in my lifetime can or will apparently change this state of affairs.  I am at a loss.

    I left the art for last.  Be back after I create it.

    Robyn

    • Alma on May 2, 2009 at 00:41
    • #

    Its soul sucking work trying to get trans equality when there are so many ignorant and hatefilled people.

    I love you Robyn, and am proud to call you friend. I’ll keep trying.  

    • Robyn on May 2, 2009 at 01:14
      Author
    • #

    Madam President and my colleagues,

    I stand to speak to this bill with a picture of two young boys in my mind.  These two children were not renowned musicians, not well-known athletes, not great writers, not Nobel Peace Prize winners – not many of the things that they might have grown to be.  And, the dreams that their mothers and fathers may have cherished for their sons, just ordinary boys, will now never be.

    No, young Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover and Jaheem Hareira will never fulfill their parents’ dreams because they were driven to a terminal desperate act by a society that accepts and perpetuates the marginalization and ostracizing of anyone who can be labeled an “other,” anyone who may not appear to be some perceived stereotypical image of the “accepted” group.

    Although these boys lived miles apart from one another, one in Massachusetts and one in Georgia, what they shared was daily anti-gay taunts, just one of the many forms of gender-based discrimination.

    These children were made to feel so utterly devoid of value, so worthless that to simply stop the pain they took their own lives.  And, they are among the five children just since February of this year who have done the same thing for the same reason.

    And there are countless examples of transgendered teens who have been murdered for just being who they are.

    Every member of our society should hang his or her head in shame that we should, by our actions or our inactions, foster a system that would drive our children to such an unspeakable alternative.

    The bill before us seeks to prevent a similar form of discrimination to a small, but vulnerable group of our citizens.  Please let me repeat this overshadowed fact – this legislation addresses discrimination.  

    Yet, there are those for whom political posturing and partisan gamesmanship have so polluted the intent of this bill that almost overnight it became dubbed “the bathroom bill.”  To those who instigated or perpetuated this pitiful myth I say to you that you, too, should hang your head in shame.  Through your words and actions you have yet further marginalized and ostracized those citizens who testified, often tearfully and always valiantly, to the abuse and degradation they have suffered for years.  For the benefit of doubt I will choose to believe that there are some among you who “know not what they do.”

    But, there is one group who knows full well what they have done and that is the media.  The media with a tradition grounded in such fine journalism of that of Edward Murrow, Helen Hunt Jackson, Harry Ashmore and Ralph McGill – journalists who risked life and limb and their reputations to expose the whole ugly truth of discrimination.

    To those among you who repeatedly used the label  “the bathroom bill,” who incorporated this into every headline and story lead, and who failed to tell the whole and complete story of this legislation I say to you, you are not journalists.  You have served merely as stenographers to ignorance, hatred and discrimination. You should hang your head in shame for your utter failure to uphold the finest standards of your profession.

    And, I want to make something perfectly clear.

    To those in our state who participated in that disgraceful effort, you should find no comfort with today’s vote.

    Your hateful and despicable behavior did not win out.

    New Hampshire is a compassionate state that supports our most vulnerable citizens.

    New Hampshire believes in equality for all its citizens to have a job and a home.

    That is the New Hampshire tradition, that is the New Hampshire I was born in, that is the New Hampshire that I love.

    So to those who mislabeled this bill and maligned its intent, I say to you: Shame on you. Shame on you for your willingness, your eagerness, to attack these citizens who simply want to live their lives. Because of your efforts  you lost. You lost because your efforts to malign these citizens brought increased attention  to this very real problem and many of us were unaware of the very real day to day challenges of a segment of New Hampshire’s population.  

    I am determined to ensure their rights as a citizen, to live their lives, protect their jobs and keep their homes will succeed. And I know I am not alone. Thousands and thousands of Granite Staters have been awoken by your attacks and they are disgusted just as much as I am.

    So, although this bill may not become law today, NH’s transgendered community has still won because citizens across this state are now willing and eager to support them in their efforts to live their lives as full and equal citizens.

    Thank you Madam President.

    Then sh voted against the bill.

    • Robyn on May 2, 2009 at 01:32
      Author
    • #

    …in Orange.

  5. I’m disappointed that, at dkos, you chose not to correct the record in any meaningful way, and here you chose not to correct the record at all.  So, for the benefit if your Docudharma readers, the Human Rights Campaign, yesterday, released the following statement:

    The New Hampshire Senate’s decision not to endorse basic legal protections for transgender people is distressing, to say the least. This is essential legislation simply aimed at making sure that everyone in New Hampshire receives equal protection under the law.  Its goal is to ensure that people don’t have to worry about losing their jobs or not finding employment at all simply because of who they are, that the law fully protects everyone against violent acts motivated by hate.

    I know that a number of organizations and activists, including GLAD and PFLAG New Hampshire, worked hard to explain to legislators what it means for someone to lose their job because they are transgender and to have no legal recourse, no way to remedy the discrimination they faced.   Unfortunately, the debate was steered way off course by false claims and vicious distortions, baseless suggestions that this was a “bathroom bill” that would somehow make restrooms unsafe.  It is incredibly demeaning to reduce peoples’ basic human rights in this way.  This legislation isn’t about the bathroom, it’s about equal treatment in the workforce, equal rights for all in New Hampshire.  We will keep working to make sure that real peoples’ stories are told and that laws across the country are updated to make clear that discrimination against transgender people is wrong.

Comments have been disabled.