Duchy: Hate-Mail Has Stopped

The Sentinel has a story following up the news that County Council member Duchy Trachtenberg has received threatening mail for her part in sponsoring the recent Montgomery County gender identity nondiscrimination bill. Good news, it sounds like the flow of hate-mail has stopped.

Council member Duchy Trachtenberg said the threats and death threats she received during the past three months because of a bill ensuring the civil rights of transgender individuals have stopped since she made them public over a week ago, but police are still investigating.

Trachtenberg claims she received between 35 and 40 threats at her home and office. The threats come in the wake of the County Council's unanimous passage of bill 23-07, the Gender Identity bill, in November. The bill ensures that transgender individuals are not discriminated against in the workplace or in housing.

Michelle Turner, a spokesperson for CRG, said her group doesn't encourage or support sending threats.

But the bill has generated plenty of controversy. An opposition group, Citizens for a Responsible Government, submitted a petition with about 30,000 signatures in favor of putting the bill up for a referendum vote this November. Maryland's largest gay rights group, Equality Maryland, subsequently filed a lawsuit questioning the Board of Election's validation of the petition.

CRG claims the bill would allow pedophiles and peeping toms into women's locker rooms and bathrooms. Council members maintain, however, that there is no language in the bill having to do with bathrooms or changing rooms. Some of the threats were signed, some were left anonymous and others were signed with obviously fake names, Trachtenberg said. Sharon Kass sent letters to Trachtenberg and Dr. Dana Beyer, a senior policy analyst on the councilwoman's staff, Trachtenberg said.

When asked for comment, Kass responded by sending e-mails with anti-gay literature to The Sentinel. One contained a pamphlet titled, "You Don't Have to Be Gay!: Real Answers to Questions about Homosexuality," and an article titled, "The Desire for a Sex Change: Psychiatrist says sex-change surgery is a collaboration with a mental disorder, not a treatment." Trachtenberg Says Harassment Has Stopped

Wow, there is a lot of stuff going on here. Threats stopped but the police are investigating. I believe I read somewhere that the FBI is in on it. I say: good. Some people don't know where to draw the line.

Interesting that Michelle Turner defends the CRG in this story before we have even been told what the "CRG" is. I will trust a copy editor did that and not the reporter, they softened the blow by moving that sentence up so the story didn't (cough cough lawyers told 'em cough) make it look like the Citizens for a Responsible Whatever had sent the threatening mail.

The pedophile thing, that kills me. How does discriminating against transgender people keep pedophiles out of the ladies room?

Finally, Sharon Kass. No comment. Actually, there were comments last time we mentioned her, two prominent members of the community commented on this blog to say that they had received mail from Ms. Kass. One said she wrote to his boss trying to get him in trouble at work, the other said she wrote to his wife, trying to get him in trouble at home. We call that "taking the low road."

Kass then sent another e-mail to The Sentinel in response to last week's front-page article about Trachtenberg receiving death threats. "The ex-gay movement will prevail. We have the facts," Kass said. "Superficial and biased reporting is routine in the press. You and your profession will be called to account."

Turner said that Kass is a supporter of CRG and not a full member, as Trachtenberg suggested. Theresa Rickman, CRG's director, was out of the country and could not be reached for comment.

We have seen this group try to distance itself from its own representatives, for instance when their speakers at the March 2005 Hate-Fest got out of hand, and when their members threatened the school board on the old Recall web site. I would be pretty sure they have talked to their lawyers about this threatening-letter business, as it would seem there could be some liability assigned to the rabble-rousing group. But what do I know? I'm no lawyer. I just figure they might want to talk it over with the attorneys before it gets too far along.

Trachtenberg said that police are still investigating the matter so she didn't want to comment further on what legal actions might be taken. However she did say several restraining orders could result from the ordeal.

During CRG's signature gathering process, allegations of intimidation surfaced on both sides of the petition. Members of CRG claimed Beyer and other individuals harassed some people at petition sites, and those opposed to the petition claim the signature collectors misrepresented it.

Equality Maryland's lawsuit against the Montgomery County Board of Elections alleges that many of the signatures the panel validated were gathered improperly, and the board didn't fully investigate this possibility. At least one person in the suit is involved because they say the petition was misrepresented to them.

I want to know who gets restraining orders. Who do you think? Any guesses?

As for signature collectors misrepresenting the law, I'd have to say I talked to a lot of them and went to a lot of the sites, and I didn't see a single place where they were telling people that their signature would be a step toward re-legalizing discrimination against transgender people. Which would have been the truth. Lots of locker-rooms, predators, pedophiles, safety for the children, not much about discrimination.

Montgomery County Council President Mike Knapp got into a dispute with a signature gatherer in February at a polling place during the Maryland Primary. He said the petition gatherer was misinformed about what the bill did.

Bill 23-07 was scheduled to go into effect last month, but has been put on hold until the referendum vote in November, or until Equality Maryland's lawsuit overturns the petition.

"If the referendum question does make it to the ballot in November," Trachtenberg said, "I'm confident Montgomery County will vote against discrimination."

I am confident of that, too. The question is, who will spend the money to make sure the public knows this is about discrimination. Because people will also vote against creepy men waving their penises at women in the ladies locker-room. And that's what the CRW wants the vote to be about. If this goes to a vote, somebody's going to have to put up some money, buy ad time, sponsor some events, to make sure people know what they're voting for.

I'm glad the tone has settled down a little bit, and hope everybody at the County Council is safe. There is plenty of room in our community for a debate over a controversial topic, but no place for people to throw threats around.