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One day, perhaps, this won't rate as news: a transgender woman challenging a gay incumbent in a primary.
I'm not holding my breath. I'm just glad that at least in Montgomery County, Maryland, they have an incumbent who has fought for the community and a challenger who, perhaps, can do even more.
Dana Beyer, the Executive Director of Gender Rights Maryland, is looking to win the nomination for a state senate seat currently held by Richard Madaleno. They are Democrats and, since no Republican is running, the winner will most likely end up in the state's legislative body.
Unfortunately, at least one thing is depressingly predictable: the stupid and hateful comments to an article announcing the race.
News flash: Governor Martin O'Malley has just signed legislation that makes Maryland one of a handful of states to extend its anti-discrimination laws to protect transgender people.
As happy as I am to see this, I am also dismayed at a depressingly familiar spectacle that accompanies it: Opponents are launching a petition to put the law up for a referendum in this November's election. I'm not so upset that they're trying to repeal the law: That, at least can be defeated relatively easily, especially in a state like Maryland, home to many LGBT lobbyists and others who work in the nation's capital. What makes me say, "Oh, this shit again!" is that, once again, opponents are using the bathroom argument.
I mean, really: What man will dress up in women's clothes just so he can go into a women's restroom and bother the people using it. If a man really wants to molest, harass or attack women, he will do so by other means and in other places. And I have yet to hear of a male-to-female transgender who actually did something she shouldn't have been doing in women's facilities.
I haven't spent a lot of time in Maryland. But from my brief stops and stays there, I get the impression that there are enough intelligent people in the Old Line State to shoot down such a ridiculous argument. I take that back: It shouldn't even be dignified by calling it an argument.
Anyway, kudos to Governor O'Malley. Too bad that this year marks the end of his second term. Because of term limits, he can't run again in November.
Another day and another...instance of hysterical reactionaries distorting reality, or simply lying, to keep a group of people from having the same rights everyone else enjoys.
This time it's happening in Maryland. There's this funny little law that expresses the utterly radical notion that transgender people should not experience discrimination in housing, education, employment or the use of public facilites on account of their gender identity expressions. It's, you know, one of those rights that cisgender heterosexual people (well, those of certain races and classes and, ahem, one gender, anyway) take for granted. It's been voted in; Governor Martin O'Malley has said he will sign this piece of legislation, which is scheduled to take effect on 1 October.
But a group of lawmakers who oppose the lawee that was signed into law last year are now looking to overturn that law. They are seeking a referendum that would put the question of repealing it on the ballot this November.
And how are they scaring, I mean appealing to, voters whose signatures they need for the referendum to make it to the ballot? You might have heard of this tactic before: They're referring to the law as "the bathroom bill", just as they did when they tried to keep it from passing.
From hearing those legislators, you'd think the law was about nothing else--or, more precisely, the "right" of "men in dresses" to enter women's bathrooms so they can harass (or even sexually assault) the women and molest young girls.
Well, the right to use the bathroom appropriate to the gender by which you're identifying and living is just one part of the law. But magnifying it wasn't enough for those elected officials: They have pandered to the crudest stereotypes (trans person as predator) and the most exaggerated, baseless fears in order to convince some people that, essentially, bigotry is good social and legislative policy.
Never mind that cross-dressers and people who are transitioning from one gender to another--or simply presenting themselves as one they weren't assigned at birth--use bathrooms for the same reasons everyone else does. And, to put it bluntly, we simply want to pee in peace, and let others do the same.
New Year's Day was the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation.
So, it seems appropriate that just over the border from where President Lincoln made one of the most important speeches in the history of this country, a bill has been introduced to ban discrimination against transgenders.
Maryland State Senator Rich Madaleno, who is gay, and his fellow Senator (and Democrat) Jaime Raskin are the ones who introduced the bill to the Terrapin State's legislative body.
The good news is that Maladeno and Raskin have twenty co-sponsors, including Republican Allan Kittleman.
The bad news is that the proposal for it died in committee last year. Senate President Thomas V. "Mike" Miller, a Democrat, reportedly blocked a vote on it. But now he's on board with Madaleno, Raskin and Kittleman.
Because of their diligence, Dana Beyer, who is Excecutive Director of Gender Rights Maryland, says the trans community "should be very hopeful this is the year."
Her optimism is not baseless. Maryland, like neighboring Washington, DC, has banned discrimination based on sexual orientation, and DC also has laws barring discrimination against transgenders.
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