R.I.P. "Beau" Biden

Yesterday we lost one of our champions:  Joseph Robinette "Beau" Biden III lost his battle with brain cancer.

Two years ago, as the Attorney General of the State of Delaware, he joined Governor Jack Markell in supporting same-sex marriage legislation, which passed soon thereafter.  Thus did Delaware become the eleventh state--and the twelfth jurisdiction--in the US to legalize gay marriage.  

One month later, he urged state lawmakers to pass legislation that would establish legal protections based on gender identity.  Only fifteen days later, Governor Markell signed that bill into law.

So, within the space of just over two months, Biden managed to bring both same-sex marriage and gender equality to his state.  How many other public officials have such a record?

While his commitment to human rights was palpable, he's an example of how "an apple doesn't fall far from the tree".  If his last name looks familiar to you, it's because his father is Joe Biden--yes, that one, the Vice-President of the United States.  It was Biden pere who, in essence, cornered President Obama into supporting same-sex marriage, something he had opposed while campaigning for office.

 

Governor O"Malley Signs Legislation; Opponents Ready To Drag It Into The Bathroom

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. 

The Bathrooms, Again....

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. 

The Netherlands Regains Its Edge

As of this writing, Argentina remains the nation with the most enlightened laws regarding gender identity.  Essentially, any Argentinian 18 years or older can live in whatever gender he or she chooses.  There are no prerequisites: no hormones, no surgery, not even a third-party recommendation or consent.

A year and eight months have passed since Argentina's ruling.  Since then, the United Kingdom, Austria and Portugal have done away with the requirements for hormones, surgeries or other medical or psychiatric interventions in order to change the gender marker on a person's identification documents.  A German court has ruled in favor of a similar policy.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the Netherlands is about to join them.  Like their European counterparts--and unlike Argentina--the Netherlands will require expert testimony attesting to the applicant's long-held conviction that he or she is of a gender different from the one to which he or she was assigned at birth.  The Dutch will, like the other nations mentined, not require any medical, pharmacological or psychiatric procedures or treatments.  One way in which the Dutch have parted company with those nations, though, is that a person has to be only 16 years old in order to make the changes.

I began my previous paragraph with "Perhaps not surprisingly" because, for one thing, the Netherlands was the first nation to legalize same-sex marriage.  Perhaps even more relevant is the fact that in 1985, it was one of the first nations to pass legislation enabling transgender people to change their registered gender.  In the ensuing quarter-century, the laws have lost some of their edge as understanding of what it means to be transgendered has advanced in the medical, legal and academic communities as well as among the general public.  So, apparently, the Dutch figured it was time to make the changes to reflect that knowledge as well as their changing understanding of human rights laws.

What They Can't Do To Us

From JerBear's Queer World News

Brendon Ayanbadejo Gets It--Almost

Kelli Busey's Planet Transgender has become one of my favorite transgender-related blog.  Actually, it achieved that distinction not long after I discovered it.  She's usually on the right track and on point, and manages to be both assertive and gentle.

She shows all of those qualities in her most recent post.  In it, she mentions the support  Baltimore Ravens linebacker Brendon Ayanbadejo's attempt to express his support for transgender rights, as he understands them.  The only problem is that he understands them in the same way too many other well-meaning but misinformed people understand them:

If a woman wants to wear a man's clothes or if a man wants to wear a woman's clothes or you feel like you're a woman on the inside and you're really a man. Who cares? Let's just treat everyone equally. Let's move on. Let's evolve as a culture, as a people.”

My impulse is to be charitable with him. Some of us who are members of the gender-variant community, and some who spend a lot of time around folks like us, would excoriate him for showing that he seems not to understand the difference between a cross-dresser and a transgendered person.  Perhaps he doesn't understand such a distinction:  Somehow I don't think he doesn't know a lot of trans people or cross-dressers and doesn't spend a lot of time around people who are familiar with us.  That's all right:  Most people probably don't know any trans people, either--or, at least, they don't know that they know us.

Plus, I somehow get the impression that his heart is at least in the right place.  Basically, he's saying that we should try to get along and to realize that we're all in the same world, in the same struggle, together, and that we can and must move forward.

I don't go to Facebook very often.  However, I'm going to post a comment on his fan page.  In it, I will praise him for saying that we should treat everyone equally and "evolve as a culture", while pointing out the difference between transgenders and cross-dressers.

Because He Can

So...A few weeks ago, Barack announced that he's in favor of gay marriage--after Joe Biden's announcement of same basically pressured him into reversing the position he espoused in 2008, when he was running for President.


Beyond that, though, how much progress has he really made on LGBT equality?  

Sometimes I get the feeling he's taking LGB people for granted because most won't vote for Romney.  And I sense that he'll throw transgenders under the bus again if the election is close enough, and the economy isn't good.


Am I the only one who feels this way?