I Am A Crime With A Fine Of $2500

I am an offense that carries a $2500 fine.

No,  you didn't misread that.  It's true of me, and every other trans person--most of all transgender kids in the state of Kentucky.

How can that be?, you ask.

Well, Bluegrass State senator C.B. Embry Jr has just sponsored a bill that would allow a student to sue his or her school for $2500 if he or she were to encounter someone of the opposite biological sex in the bathroom.

It is intended as a way to enforce another part of the proposed law:  that students must use the bathroom designated for the sex indicated on their birth certificates, not the one by which they identify.

The bill would also allow students to ask for special accomodations such as unisex bathrooms.  But how many kids would actually do such a thing?  Some simply wouldn't know enough to do so; others would feel intimidation, especially if they are in hostile--or, at least, non-supportive--environments. Nothing is more humiliating and embarassing for a kid than feeling singled out, which is usually what happens when a kid gets "special" accomodations for anything.

So, in essence, the bill would criminalize trans kids simply for existing and fine their schools for it.  That is going to promote the safety and welfare of children...how?

Hung In The Middle

One of my comments on my Huffington Post article about Don Ennis came from Alana Sholar.

It just happens that she's written a book, "Hung In The Middle", about her own story as a transgender woman in rural Kentucky.

She is a great example of something I've long said:  Nothing will do more to help people understand us than hearing our stories, whether in person, in print or elsewhere. Even the least articulate among us can, I think, have a greater effect (if a person is open-minded) than taking, as someone else so eloquently put it, "Remedial Trans 101 for the eighth time".

I intend to read Ms. Sholar's book.