GOP sweep heightens anxiety for many transgender Americans

[webfact]

GOP sweep heightens anxiety for many transgender Americans

By DAVID CRARY

 

NEW YORK (AP) — Anxiety is high among many transgender Americans after the sweeping Republican election victory. They fear stronger resistance to their push for civil-rights protections, including broader access to public restrooms, and wonder if their newly won right to serve openly in the military is in jeopardy.

 

Transgender people "are concerned for their safety, survival and legal rights in the coming years," said Chase Strangio, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union who often works on transgender issues.

 

Among the specific concerns:

 

— Many transgender people expect that Republican President-elect Donald Trump's administration will abandon or weaken the efforts by President Barack Obama's administration to enable transgender students to use the bathrooms of their choice at public schools. Republican officials in numerous states have opposed that campaign, saying schools should not be required to let such students use bathrooms or locker rooms based on their gender identity.

 

— There are fears that more GOP-governed states will approve legislation limiting transgender rights and will reject proposals to expand such rights.

 

— There's uncertainty about the Pentagon's recently adopted policy of allowing transgender people to serve openly in the military. Some conservative groups, including the Family Research Council and the Center for Military Readiness, have suggested a reversal of the policy. So has GOP Rep. Duncan Hunter of California, who serves on the House Armed Services Committee.

 

"The question needs to be asked: Does this make our military more effective and more lethal?" said Hunter's chief of staff, Joe Kasper. "It's hard to see how."

 

Mara Keisling, executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality, was cautiously optimistic that the military's new policy would survive.

 

"I don't know if anything will happen, but we're certainly alert and ready to fight," she said. "Hopefully, good, smart people will prevail."

 

More broadly, transgender-rights advocates have been dealing with an outpouring of dismay and apprehension in their community.

 

Keisling's organization, for example, held a call-in session Friday to provide advice to transgender people worried that changing their gender designation on federal and state identity documents might become more difficult in the new political environment.

 

During the presidential campaign, Trump sent mixed signals about his approach to transgender rights.

 

At one point, he said transgender celebrity Caitlyn Jenner could use whatever bathroom she preferred in one of his luxury buildings — an offer Jenner later took up at the Trump International Hotel and Tower in Manhattan. However, Trump has declined to repudiate a divisive North Carolina law that restricts transgender people's bathroom access. He has said such policy decisions should be left up to the states.

 

Since his election, Trump has not publicly addressed transgender issues, though he did ease some concerns among gays and lesbians by saying that he considered same-sex marriage to be settled law. Transgender-rights activists remain wary, depicting Vice President-elect Mike Pence and some members of Trump's transition team as hostile to their causes.

 

Jennifer Finney Boylan, a transgender author who teaches at Barnard College in New York, said in an email that she fears conservatives will now seek to "isolate and marginalize transgender people" and make them feel separated from the broader gay rights movement.

 

On the state level, transgender activists have taken heart that Republican North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory, who incurred sharp criticism for signing a bill limiting transgender people's bathroom access, is trailing slightly in still-incomplete returns. Prospects for repealing the bill are uncertain, however, given continued GOP control of the legislature, and a similar bill already has been introduced in Texas.

 

Republican Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who is president of the state Senate, listed what he called a "Women's Privacy Act" as one of his top 10 priorities when the legislature reconvenes in January.

 

"A majority of Texans in both political parties and in every ethnic and demographic group believe that women and girls should have privacy and safety in their restrooms, showers and locker rooms," Patrick said. "Unfortunately, legislation is necessary to assure that they do."

 

Another proposed Texas bill would overturn nondiscrimination ordinances protecting LGBT people at the local level. Dallas, Austin and Fort Worth are among the cities with such protections.

 

Shannon Minter, a transgender man who is legal director of the San Francisco-based National Center for Lesbian Rights, said many transgender civil-rights gains of recent years are based on federal statutes and court precedents that cannot be quickly undone. However, he expressed dismay at the willingness of some conservatives to target transgender people with so-called bathroom bills.

 

"Like others in our country, transgender people want to be able to live safely, to be able to work and have access to decent health care, and to be able to live with dignity," Minter said in an email. "We don't want to be in the crosshairs of a trumped-up culture war."

 

Sunday's Transgender Day of Remembrance, an annual commemoration of transgender people who have been killed in bias-related homicides, added to the community's somber mood. According to the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs, 23 transgender or gender-fluid people have been homicide victims in the U.S. so far this year, one more than the coalition tallied in all of 2015. Nearly all were black or Latina transgender women.

 

Some activists fear that violence could worsen in the aftermath of the election.

 

Dana Beyer, executive director of Gender Rights Maryland, said she is encouraging transgender people, and the parents of transgender youths, to move to "safe spaces" — cities and states with legal protections and a supportive culture.

 

Dru Levasseur, Transgender Rights Project director for the LGBT-rights group Lambda Legal, said postelection worries were particularly intense among transgender youths and immigrants, and transgender people of color.

 

"I've heard from many people that they feel scared and alone, but they are not alone, especially now," Levasseur said. "There is an army of smart lawyers and activists who are committed to protecting them and fighting for them."

 

According to a recent estimate by the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law, there are about 1.4 million transgender adults in the United States.

 

-- © Associated Press 2016-11-21

 

[ClutchClark]

Transgender are rightfully concerned that their choice of bathroom rights might very well be in jeopardy in Federal buildings. 

 

As far as their actual personal safety, this is just more hysteria. They have ALL the protections afforded every American AND the protection of any violence against them would very likely be a hate crime as well and carry a much stronger penalty for the assailant (a protection not afforded every American). 

 

Please stop with the perceived victim drama.

 

As for feeling "scared & alone", the article indicates there are "about 1.4 million transgender adults" in the US. There are organizations svailable for support.

 

Where are these irrational fears being reinforced?

 

Dana Beyer, executive director of Gender Rights Maryland, said she is encouraging transgender people, and the parents of transgender youths, to move to "safe spaces" — cities and states with legal protections and a supportive culture.

 

 

 

 

Edited November 20, 2016 by ClutchClark

[blazes]

So long as approximately 0.3% of the American population don't follow this up with demands that the 99.7% address them not as "sir" or "ma'am" or "he" or "she" but as "hir" or "zir" or whatever nitwit appellation an individual comes up with.

[Emster23]

" Transgender people "are concerned for their safety, survival and legal rights in the coming years,"

And so am I.

 I am not trans, gay, Muslim, or member of minority group. I am a straight white old man.

 Those who hate others who are just too different from themselves have been emboldened by the alt right that oppression and hate are perfectly acceptable. Seems hate and anger level has gone up among the alt right types since the election, and they won!

" They have ALL the protections afforded every American AND the protection of any violence against them." I guess you weren't around during the late 50's and 60's when police were the tool of oppression in the South, and the FBI routinely violated all sorts of laws going after Dr King.

[55Jay]

Recall Jingthing mentioned this in another thread.  A distinction between Federal law and basic civil/human rights afforded to everyone.

 

As a special interest group, I admit being impressed at how organized and tenacious they are, and how they capitalized on a willing Obama Administration to achieve quite a bit in a relatively short period of time, compared to previous years.   Also that they went from being hopeful about a Hillary Clinton administration likely to keep carrying the ball down field...... to the horrifying prospect of a hard right Trump administration tinkering around with social/legal/religious issues.

 

I recognize "they" aren't done yet, however, my feeling right now is middle America (whatever that means anymore) has a dose of LGBTQ123XYZ fatigue in lieu of broader concerns.   I think another hard push on the bathroom issue, for example, would be incredibly tone deaf and possibly counter-productive.

 

I'm concerned about Roe v Wade.  If that is overturned somehow, the US of A is, IMO, in a whole heap of trouble, and we won't be talking about which bathrooms TGs can or should pee in.  That said, I "get" that it is all linked.  Focus should be preserving what "we've" got and focus on calibrating the Dem/Progressive party and win the election in 2020.

[jesimps]

What sort of a name is Chase Strangio? Mind you, it's perfect for a civil rights lawyer IMHO. 

Actually, it looks to me that most of the hate is coming from the minorities directed at the majority. They certainly seem to have a loud voice considering their numbers as a proportion of the population. I'm all for live and let live but it gets me a bit pear shaped when people start demanding to be more than equal. 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited November 21, 2016 by jesimps

[i claudius]

The only people who seem to get oppressed these days are the ordinary folk who have got nothing "different" about them  we just dont shout loud enough

[sgtsabai]

The hate crimes and hate bills have already started. "Ordinary" people, what ever that means, I suspect white, are oppresed, by the elites of Wall Street and corporations which are represented in both bought and sold parties. Other than that, they certainly aren't oppresed by those that are "different" (black?).

 

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/38412-anti-semitism-in-the-white-house-stephen-bannon-donald-trump-and-the-alt-right

 

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/700-hateful-attacks-reported-trump-election-article-1.2879829

 

http://www.salon.com/2016/11/19/the-lgbt-rights-backlash-under-trump-has-already-begun-new-laws-in-texas-are-a-shocking-harbinger-of-things-to-come/

[elgordo38]

Be afraid very afraid. There may come a day when they want to sew a rainbow color insignia on your clothing. 

[elgordo38]

7 hours ago, ClutchClark said:

their choice of bathroom rights might very well be in jeopardy in Federal buildings. 

Does the ruling party not get to pee on the opposition members shoes marking their territory so to speak. 

[ClutchClark]

6 hours ago, Emster23 said:

" They have ALL the protections afforded every American AND the protection of any violence against them." I guess you weren't around during the late 50's and 60's when police were the tool of oppression in the South, and the FBI routinely violated all sorts of laws going after Dr King.

 

Welcome to 2016. 

 

Did you forget to set your alarm and doze off 

[elgordo38]

I think England envisioned a Trump Pence victory years ago and issued a coin called Trumppence