Tag Archive | Transgender

Some small progress in Texas

Sep19

Yesterday, Nikki Araguz had her appeal heard by a 3 judge panel in the 13th District Court of Appeals in Texas. Now you have to remember that the person who started all this legalistic crap was Thomas Araguz’s former wife. You need to remember that the lawyer she hired was so slimy that he’s been barred from further law practice in Texas. You have to remember that Judge Randy Clapp accepted a bad photocopy of Nikki’s voided California birth certificate from said lawyer, which the state of California has publicly stated is not valid and then used that as his basis for declaring that Nikki is not female. You have to remember that when presented with further evidence he denied a rehearing saying any evidence wasn’t going to change his bigoted mind. And then you have to remember that is how he made his ruling.

The hearing yesterday is very likely to rule in Nikki’s favor as is the full appeals court when the ex-wife appeals the panel’s decision. You also have to remember that the Texas Supreme Court is packed with anti-gay activist judges who are likely to rule against Nikki on completely unconstitutional, religious, and spurious grounds.

At that point, all this will end up headed for the Supreme Court and I can’t see the Supreme Court not taking this because we have two states disagreeing about identifying documentation which Texas is required, under the 14th amendment, to accept. No, the 14th amendment doesn’t say that explicitly but case law has established that fact. And I cannot see Texas winning this purely on those grounds alone. Texas will be forced to accept that birth certificate, and having done so, will be forced to recognize Nikki (and every other transgender person in Texas) as legally of the gender which they claim. So why all this hoopla? It’s standard for radical right wing extremists and will then further give Greg Abbott more ammunition to talk about Texas seceding from the US because the rest of the country is beginning to recognize the basic civil rights of transgender persons. This is all political theater and also because evil men like Greg Abbott appear to actually enjoy hurting other human beings in order to shove their religious beliefs down your throat.

Here’s a good summary of the current situation from Cristan Williams who has been writing about this case for a few years now.

Radical Right Wing Crazies

Sep16

Texas attorney general Greg Abbott (who is now running for governor since Rick Perry announced he will not seek another term) is planning to sue the entire state of Texas to impose his religious views on everyone.

Now note that this line of argument was already tried in the 1950s and 1960s as the basis for continuing to discriminate against blacks and to ban interracial marriage and we know how that turned out in the end. But here in Texas he might win, which will mean Texas will have to be spanked, publicly yet again, by the federal court system for violating basic civil rights. (Texas has this ugly history in that regard, unfortunately.)

What really gets Abbott’s cockles all bunched up in a frenzy is that every major city in Texas, from Dallas to Austin to Houston and most recently San Antonio have all approved GLBT protection laws within the city limits. Further, the vast majority of major corporations operating in Texas have strong pro-GLBT rights corporate policies.

So what is driving this? Abbott’s classic appeal, using the standard GOP “Southern Strategy“, to try to reach bigoted white voters. It’s that simple.

Now Abbott just had his head handed to him by the federal court system in a lawsuit initiated by Wendy Davis, the progressive woman who famously filibustered that heinous anti-abortion travesty for nearly 12 hours. As retribution, the GOP controlled state senate tried to draw her district out of existence. And they lost, not just for her district but the entire redrawn state map was tossed out as blatantly biased.

So that’s the framework under which Abbott is proceeding. And before you think this might not touch you as a trans person, Abbott is of the opinion that gender can never be changed, meaning he is seeking to legally de-transition every single transitioned transsexual in the state of Texas.

This is what transphobia looks like, people. It wears a business suit and claims to be “mainstream Republican”. If you are trans and you vote Republican, you are supporting John Boehner, Eric Cantor, Paul Ryan, Mitt Romney and that entire crew who have openly declared war on you and your right to live.

What boggles my mind is that there are trans people who actually think that this is acceptable. I can tell you that if the radical right wing extremists win and you lose all your rights as a trans person, I won’t be shedding any tears for you if you helped make it happen.

Into the Literal “No Man’s Land”

Sep15

As my transition proceeds, my body continues to slowly, slowly adapt to HRT and the presence of estrogen instead of testosterone. I’m definitely much happier and calmer but the physical effects are slowly coming to light as well.

Case in point – I went to Dairy Queen with my spouse. We did this on a spur of the moment so I exited the house in very typical androgynous mode, with two exceptions – no compression shirt under my t-shirt and I didn’t tie my hair back into a pony tail. So my budding breasts would be visible at certain angles depending how the t-shirt fell against my chest and my hair from the rear had a definite feminine take on it. As usual I wore a cap because the hair loss on top annoys me to no end when out in public.

We arrived at Dairy Queen and there was a family of four inside. The two kids, both teens, didn’t bat an eye at me but the mother looked at me sort of oddly once that I noticed. Then I caught the father glancing at me repeatedly as if trying to figure out exactly what he was looking at.

Then another man and his son entered. Again the teen boy glanced at me and didn’t appear to take further notice but the man stood there repeatedly looking at me and not just at my face. When I noticed this, I turned and smiled nicely at him and he looked away. I then wandered over to the frozen treats display and looked into the glass to see him watching me yet again. I turned then, looked at my spouse, accepted my treat from the guy behind the counter as he finished making it, and then smiled at the guy one more time. He scowled at me, apparently unsure and threatened by my clearly ambiguous sexuality.

At that point my spouse and I both laughed and proceeded to leave. She had seen what had happened and was halfway amused.

Note to those wondering – yes we are still going to divorce. We remain friends. She’s just a heterosexual woman and doesn’t want to be married to another woman. That’s her choice, after all and I respect that. But we still do things together while she’s going back to school to refresh her skills before re-entering the workplace.

Things are rarely what we think they are

Aug18

Yesterday, I met someone I met via an online transgender forum. She knew I lived in this city and was here on business so she asked if we might meet. We did and ended up chatting for four hours when we planned on two.

In person she’s rather different than she presents herself online. I was pleased. We have a lot more in common than I originally thought and we hit it off rather well. Our discussions were far ranging, at least in the trans universe, from her extensive experiences (she transitioned over a decade ago) to my experiences thus far (I’m a fledgling newbie at this by comparison!), to trans politics, to health care in general, to our children, to rejection and then acceptance, often from the people who rejected us first.

Her experiences give me some hope that my own children may mellow and begin to accept me as I move further into my transition and they realize that they can either include me or exclude me but not sit on the fence.

In other matters, I read one of the more beautiful blog entries I’ve read in a while at Transgenderless titled “B is for (a New) Beginning“. (NOTE: As of 2015, this blog appears to be gone, sadly.) This made me smile, to read about another transwoman who is beginning to blossom into her womanhood.

In my own transition, I keep plodding alone, slowly but surely, like a turtle. But I expect things to pick up significantly over the next 16 months. As always, everything is subject to finances and being able to pay for things up front, so I can only go as fast as I can save.

Still, I am now optimistic about a couple things coming up soon, one of which is beginning electrolysis with E3000. I did get an appointment, in December rather than January, so that’s really good.

And I have to make a decision. I’ve been invited to be a maid of honor at a friend’s wedding in the spring of 2014. I want to go and I’m afraid of going, strange as that may sound. My biggest fear is becoming a spectacle at my friend’s wedding and detracting from that day for her and her fiance. But I’d love to go, and to be her maid of honor.

So I’ll spend some more time fretting, fussing, and wondering but within another month or so I need to decide. Arrangements need to be made.

Bradley Manning’s Gender Dysphoria is a Distraction

Aug1

The Bradley Manning case is complicated. His gender dysphoria is almost a sideshow used to help paint him as “other” and therefore worthy of torture and excessive punishment. I was going to write about this in more depth at a TG forum where I post but it’s not really appropriate for there so I’ll discuss what I know here.

First, what actually happened? A crime was committed by others (which involved murder and still has not even been prosecuted let alone punished). Bradley Manning attempted to report said crime to his chain of command. His chain of command actively tried to cover up that crime. And finally, UCMJ Article 78 states:

“Any person subject to this chapter who, knowing that an offense punishable by this chapter has been committed, receives, comforts, or assists the offender in order to hinder or prevent his apprehension, trial, or punishment shall be punished as a court-martial may direct.”

So Manning tried to report it as required by the military code of justice, saw further crimes in the coverup, and therefore went public with the information since he felt he had no other recourse. None of these facts are disputed by the Marine Corps. Other military vets who have watched the video have the same conclusion – the first group of people killed? That’s war. The attack on the van of civilians who were trying to move a wounded person to treatment? That’s a war crime by definition under Article 12 of the Geneva Convention:

“…Members of the armed forces and other persons (…) who are wounded or sick, shall be respected and protected in all circumstances. They shall be treated humanely and cared for by the Party to the conflict…Any attempts upon their lives, or violence to their persons, shall be strictly prohibited; in particular, they shall not be murdered or exterminated…”.

I highlighted the relevant part.

None of this is disputed by the Marine Corps or the prosecution. Now, having established that Manning tried to report a war crime and was rebuffed for it and that he was dragged into the coverup, he legally had one of two choices – report it by other means (since the chain of command had demonstrated it was corrupt) or become an accessory after the fact and subject to punishment if this incident came to light via other means.

After all of this is when Manning then began also releasing other information via Wikileaks about other potential war crimes.

John Stuart Mill once said: “‎Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.” Bradley Manning tried to do something and for that he will go to jail for up to 130 years. While he may deserve some punishment for what he did, I cannot see how anyone can claim that he deserves 130 years in prison while the murderers and officers who covered up these murders get promotions and continue with their careers and that Manning was effectively tortured, again in violation of the UCMJ as well as the international Convention on Torture while no action is taken against those who tortured him.

Finally, he has already been held in excessively punitive circumstances for 3 years already. In my opinion, his sentence needs to be commuted to time already served.

When I review these facts, I can only conclude that Bradley Manning’s gender dysphoria is raised by the prosecution as a means to make the public less sympathetic to him and therefore deserving of the actual torture he received. And that says a lot about how our society still views trans folk despite progress made thus far.