Yay For The Press IV: The Baltimore Sun
I can't tell you how refreshing this is! The Baltimore Sun has a story yesterday about the CRW's petition drive. Real news, real reporting. This one is long, with a lot of details, including some interesting stuff about Baltimore's gender-identity nondiscrimination law and how it has worked out.
Because it's so long, I will take pieces here -- follow the link for the rest of the story.
If our community can debate this question on the merits of the issue itself, I have no concerns. It may be that once some thoughts have been batted around, people decide that it isn't time to add gender identity to the nondiscrimination bill. I doubt it, but it can happen. Whatever the conclusion, if the debate is open and reasonable, I'm fine with the it. If the media were to report that the bill was about pedophiles in the ladies room, there could be no debate, but it looks like that isn't going to happen. We are blessed with good journalists who see the obvious smokescreen and are committed to reporting this correctly.
The Sun lets the shower-nuts have their word:
Sounds like "officials" are reading the TTF blog. I can't wait to hear Ike Leggett say something about "shower-nuts" on the evening news!
Skipping a little ...
And skipping further, an important quote from the viewpoint of a city that's already passed us:
There's more. Follow the link.
The Sun is able to talk about the shower-nuttiness, they don't have to hide from it but they put it in perspective. Again, if the discussion on this topic can be level-headed and fact-based, I have all the confidence that the people will decide the right thing. Thanks to Rona Marech at The Sun for excellent and thorough reporting on this.
Because it's so long, I will take pieces here -- follow the link for the rest of the story.
A Montgomery County measure intended to protect transgender people appears headed to a voter referendum, setting up a potentially divisive debate over how far anti-discrimination laws should extend.
The recently passed law protects transgender people from discrimination in housing, employment, public accommodations, and taxi and cable service, and was supposed to go into effect yesterday. But it is on hold after opponents gathered 32,000 signatures in a bid to put it on the ballot this fall.
Citizens for a Responsible Government, the group that paid for thousands of computerized calls to county households to further the petition drive, says the measure infringes on the privacy of most citizens while protecting just a few. Transgender law at risk
If our community can debate this question on the merits of the issue itself, I have no concerns. It may be that once some thoughts have been batted around, people decide that it isn't time to add gender identity to the nondiscrimination bill. I doubt it, but it can happen. Whatever the conclusion, if the debate is open and reasonable, I'm fine with the it. If the media were to report that the bill was about pedophiles in the ladies room, there could be no debate, but it looks like that isn't going to happen. We are blessed with good journalists who see the obvious smokescreen and are committed to reporting this correctly.
The Sun lets the shower-nuts have their word:
"Our primary objection is the impact this has on every other citizen in Montgomery County," said Michelle Turner, a spokeswoman for the group. "This legislation affects or was written for less than 1 percent of the population, with total disrespect for the safety, well-being and rights of everyone else."
Public restrooms, for example, will no longer offer real privacy for each gender, the group says.
But officials say the new law, which the County Council passed unanimously and County Executive Isiah Leggett signed, does not force changes at public restrooms. Furthermore, they say the bathroom issue is an old scare tactic that unfairly takes attention away from the measure's point: to protect people whose internal sense of gender and biological gender at birth do not match.
Sounds like "officials" are reading the TTF blog. I can't wait to hear Ike Leggett say something about "shower-nuts" on the evening news!
Skipping a little ...
Once viewed as a relatively straightforward matter of biological category, gender has evolved into a far more complicated subject. Transgender is an umbrella term that can include transsexuals as well as people with a fluid identity that transcends traditional gender categories.
Montgomery County and Baltimore City are among about 95 jurisdictions and 13 states that have passed laws protecting transgender people, and the General Assembly has considered extending the protections across Maryland.
And skipping further, an important quote from the viewpoint of a city that's already passed us:
In 2002, when O'Malley was Baltimore's mayor, the City Council unanimously passed its own version of a transgender anti-bias law. About a dozen people have filed complaints with the Baltimore Community Relations Commission since then, according to commission director Alvin O. Gillard, but the bathroom problems that Montgomery County critics have forecasted have not come to pass.
"If you're committed to fairness and equality, you can find a way to accommodate everyone and protect their privacy," Gillard said. "It's disappointing to know that you're refighting battles that you thought that you'd already won."
There's more. Follow the link.
The Sun is able to talk about the shower-nuttiness, they don't have to hide from it but they put it in perspective. Again, if the discussion on this topic can be level-headed and fact-based, I have all the confidence that the people will decide the right thing. Thanks to Rona Marech at The Sun for excellent and thorough reporting on this.
posted by JimK at 9:50 AM
6 Comments:
A few points on nomenclature:
1) There is no such thing as "biological gender." There is sex, which is biological, and there is gender, which is everything else -- psychological, social, experiential, etc.
2) There is no determination of sex at birth that is "biological." The determination is legal, and is made based on the presence or absence of a penis. 99% of the time the penis, if it exists, is recognizable as such and is large enough to be called a penis. But 99% of the time is not 100%, and the law is now accommodating those cases and cases where errors are made.
3) As I've explained here for years now, biological sex has many components, no one of which is determinative. For human beings, the major determinative biological factor is one's brain. That's why we talk about brain sex.
Other components include genitals, gonads, body morphology, hormones, hormone receptors, secondary sex characteristics, chromosomes, and a host of genes, all of which interact in an intricate dance through development and thereafter.
I hope as part of the educational process, in which we are now immersed, the media begins to get the terms correct. I already see that happening.
"Our primary objection is the impact this has on every other citizen in Montgomery County," said Michelle Turner, a spokeswoman for the group. "This legislation affects or was written for less than 1 percent of the population, with total disrespect for the safety, well-being and rights of everyone else."
Got that everyone else? If you’re not transgendered, you’re against this bill.
And don’t you forget it!
Andrea - not anon
Now I go into a bathroom, into my stall and shut the door- I have privacy. I understand men have the whole urinal in the open thing but if they want more privacy, they can go into the stalls(but watch for Larry Craig's fingers and feet!). Now Michelle must go into the bathroom and what?- not shut the door to the stall? Is she worried someone will spy on her make-up secrets at the mirror when she is done?
Let's figure out what is really meant by the claim that such a few number of folks will have such a serous impact on the rights of the rest of the county.
Let's say there are 100 transgender individuals in MOCO. Let's also say they use a "public" bathroom 4 times a month (most people really don't use public bathrooms, especially the women I know, and I doubt transgenders are any different). Let's also say there are 2 other people in the bathroom at the same time (women do tend to go in pairs).
So:
100 trans
X 2 folks in the bathoorm
X 24 (twice a month x 12 months),
means that 4,800 MOCOans might, and I stretch might, be in the bathroom at the same time a transgender is in there. If they have their stall door closed, which I hope they would, then 0 MOCOans would be negatively affected by this law.
Does MOCO really want to say that it stands for biotry and discrination when this law, based on dumb arguements to begin with, might only affect less than 1/2 of 1 percent of MOCO residents? Is this really an argument about bathrooms and safety, or another attempt to have someone's religious views forced upon the entire county?
"Is this really an argument about bathrooms and safety, or another attempt to have someone's religious views forced upon the entire county?"
CRG now has "Victory Pictures" up -- REPLETE WITH CLOSE UPS OF THEIR OWN CHILDREN!
You know, the one's they're so concerned about protecting from the transgender menace that they've waged a campaign of hatred and lies to swindle enough citizens of Montgomery County into siding with them on to the point of accomplishing that goal so they can plaster THEIR OWN CHILDREN'S FACES ON THE INTERNET for all the world to see!!!
--
And THESE are the people who want to ensure the safety of OTHER people's children?
I felt lead to repeat it so sue me said...
"And THESE are the people who want to ensure the safety of OTHER people's children?"
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