Tag: discrimination

Brynn Tannehill has been a guest author at The New Civil Right Movement this past week, writing about transgender people in the military.  She published articles on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.

Tannehill is a former Navy pilot and also writes for the Huffington Post.

On Monday she published the title essay, After DADT: Transgender Life In The United States Military.  

Most people, including many within the LGBT community (including some very prominent LGBT leaders), were or still are unaware that the end of DADT did not end the exclusion of transgender people from military service.  There is no law preventing transgender individuals from serving.  However, being transgender is still grounds for “rejection for military service.”

When Viviane Reding, Vice-President of the European Commission, called for more research on the effects of homophobia, the Agency for Fundamental Rights stepped forward.

The result is the EU LGBT survey.  As always, I have read the relevant pdf so that you do not have to do so.

In the past decade, a growing number of international and national developments have addressed the fundamental rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) persons.  Standards on non-discrimination and equality for LGBT persons have been further developed or reinforced by the European Union (EU), the Council of Europe and the United Nations (UN).  Sexual orientation and gender identity have increasingly been recognised as grounds of discrimination in European and national legislation.  Today, the situation of LGBT persons in the EU is no longer a marginalised issue but a recognised human rights concern.

–Morton Kjærum, Director of the Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA)

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,

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.

Somewhere along the line  the concept of equality has become muddled.  We can certainly see that in deliberations around North America in the past week.

In Boise, ID, Helena, MT, East Aurora, IL and Canada we have seen what happens when the public chooses to consider the equality of minority people…especially those of us in minorities that most people don’t know much about, don’t want to know much about and generally detest anyway.

The idea that giving us equal protection under the law will endanger other people because a third set of people might take advantage of our protections is just ludicrous.  It’s like saying that disabled people shouldn’t have protections because able-bodied people might use their set-aside parking spaces.

The District of Columbia has had recent problems vis-a-vis the transgender community, what with a rash of transwomen being shot or otherwise killed, including at least one time by an off-duty police officer.  In 2000 a government study of the DC trans community showed a 42% unemployment rate and that 47% of the community did not have health insurance.

The study also indicated that in order to survive, many transpeople resorted to sex work.  MPD responded to that news by instituting a policy of using condom possession as evidence of prostitution.

These actions discourage sex workers from using condoms, increasing the risk of HIV-a particularly worrisome possibility for transgender people in the District, where the rate is already so high across the population, says Megan McLemore, a senior researcher in the Health and Human Rights Division of Human Rights Watch.

As you might imagine, this has caused a lot of tension between transpeople and the city government.  Imagine our surprise, then when the District of Columbia Office of Human Rights announced that it will launch what it believes is the first government-funded campaign aimed at stopping anti-transgender discrimination.  The effort will commence in late summer/early fall.

Specialist John Ackley served in the 34th Infantry Division (the Red Bulls) in Iraq in 2009.  Ackley recently inquired about re-enlistment in the National Guard.  The Guard was all happy about it until they discovered Ackley has legally changed her name to Ashley and has transitioned to a woman.

A history of, or current manifestations of…transsexual, gender identity disorder to include major abnormalities or defects of genitalia such as change of sex or a current attempt to change sex…or dysfunctional residuals from surgical correction of these conditions render an individual administratively unfit.

–Lt. Col. Kevin Olson, Spokesman for the Minnesota National Guard

That response is far different than the response Ackley got from her superiors when she told them at the end of her tour of service that she was wanting to begin transition.

I figured there would be boards and I would have to talk to people all the way up the chain of command.

But no, they were fine with it.

—Ackley

Vandiver Elizabeth Glenn, who goes by Vandy Beth, is a transgender woman who was fired from her job editing legislation for the Georgia General Assembly Office of Legislative Council when she informewd her supervisor that she would be transitioning from male to female in 2007.  Legislative Council Sewell Brumby conceded to the court that Vandy Beth’s “intended feminine appearance” was the reason for the termination.

The federal District Court ruled that termination to be a violation of the Constitutions’s Equal Protection guarantee and discriminated againston the basis of her failure to conform to sex stereotypes.  The state appealed the case to the 11th Circuit.

The decision is now in.  Writing for the unanimous panel that included Judge William Pryor (appointed by W) and Judge Phyllis Kravitz (Carter), Judge Rosemary Barkett (Clinton) wrote:

An individual cannot be punished because of his or her perceived gender-nonconformity.  Because these protections are afforded to everyone, they cannot be denied to a transgender individual…A person is defined as transgender precisely because of the perception that his or her behavior transgresses gender stereotypes.