sexgenderbody

stfuhypocrisy:

Taking stock on Transgender Awareness week, activist Susan Gapka says it’s been a “very good” but not quite fantastic year for trans rights in Ontario.

Ontario has passed important legislation affecting trans people since the last Trans Day of Remembrance, said Gapka.

In June, the legislature passed Toby’s Act, which amends the Ontario Human Rights Code to protect people from discrimination based on gender identity and gender expression.

On Sept. 1, the Accepting Schools Act came into force, which offers students protection from bullying, especially homophobic and transphobic bullying.

“This is going to give younger people a chance to grow up and graduate from high school,” she said. “These are all pillars for social inclusion of trans people. I’m thrilled, personally.”

Progress is also being made on the federal scene, she said. The House of Commons voted in favour of bill C-279, which would amend the Canadian Human Rights Code to protect trans people from discrimination, but it still needs to be approved by the Senate.

“I don’t want to give a hard time to the Conservatives, but they haven’t been historically supportive, but 15 Conservatives voted yes (in the House). That’s progress, is it not?” she said.

Despite this year’s progress, laws aren’t the be all and end all for Canada’s trans population, she said.

“We have laws and human rights protection around gay bashing and bullying, but people still get gay-bashed and bullied, so it’s not the answer, but it’s a step in the right direction,” she said.

On Transgender Day of Awareness, Gapka will be thinking about the hardships that trans people face and those who have died.

“It’s a wonder we ever graduate from high school or grow up, because we experience a lot of hardship. We experience violence and discrimination,” she said, adding that especially applies to trans people in poverty and those who work or live on the street.

“The resiliency and determination that we use just to be ourselves and live in this kind of society that persecutes us, is the same resilience and tenacity we’re going to use to work together to change the world,” she said.

thecurvature:

The headline itself makes me angry — while the deal involves pleading “guilty,” coercively accepting the best of bad options in a terrifying situation where you are being aggressively prosecuted and likely to face a hostile jury that is NOT made up of your peers is not the same as “admitting” that the whole self-defense line was bullshit — this is the first time I’ve actually seen Freeman make his argument about why prosecuting CeCe was necessary:

“This is not a self-defense case, because if you have a weapon, you have a duty to retreat,” said Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman.

McDonald did not try to walk away, Freeman said, nor did she act reasonably toward Schmitz. He said McDonald was beating up the woman who threw the glass when Schmitz pulled McDonald away.

“There was no indication in that point in time that there was any weapon about to be used against Ms. McDonald. Nor was there any evidence that she was in any threat of harm by the victim,” Freeman said. “She pulls her scissors out and stabs him in the chest. That’s not self-defense.”

1. CeCe had ALREADY been attacked with a weapon. How is it “reasonable” to assume that they did not have an additional weapon when they had already used one against her?

2. How, exactly, do you “walk away” from a group of white supremacists who have smashed your face in?

3. In what universe is being grabbed by the guy who just made violent threats against you (shouting racist and transphobic slurs at a person walking down the street is a threat) an example of “no evidence” that she was about to be harmed? How is that NOT a threat?

4. Notice the differences and similarities between this case and that of Trayvon Martin. CeCe was arrested immediately over a death in a fight where she was not the aggressor, had been attacked with a weapon, and received threats against her safety. George Zimmerman was free for over a month after a fight in which he was the aggressor and was the only one who possessed a weapon. BOTH CeCe and Trayvon were expected to “retreat” from their aggressors rather than fight back. George Zimmerman got to “stand his ground” in a fight that he started, while CeCe McDonald was expected to somehow walk away from a group of people who had used a weapon against her … because she had a weapon, too.

I know that someone is going to say something about different states, different laws, and good for them. That might be the “technical” “explanation.” But what this comes down to is that white folks are allowed to assault and even kill Black folks as much as they damn want to, and Black people are not allowed to defend themselves.

A Dallas transgender woman was issued a ticket for using the women’s restroom at an area hospital.

Parkland police cited Paula Witherspoon, whose legal name is [redacted], for disorderly conduct on April 25.

“It was definitely humiliating, degrading,” she said. “I felt like I was being discriminated against.”

A Parkland Hospital representative said the hospital received a complaint from a concerned female patient about a man in the women’s restroom.

“This is 2012, and I’ve been transitioning since 2006, and I’ve never had a problem until I went to Parkland Hospital,” Witherspoon said.

Witherspoon said she doesn’t even remember seeing anyone else in the restroom until she walked out.

“There was a lady there that said, ‘That’s a man.’ I just ignored her and kept going,” Witherspoon said.

Minutes later, a Parkland officer came over and cited her, she said. Witherspoon said she offered to show the officer a transition letter from her doctor that states, “She is expected to use facilities consistent with her external presentation, which is female.”

But Parkland police told her they have to go by what is on her license, Witherspoon said.

Under Texas law, Witherspoon must have acted “intentionally or knowingly for a lewd or unlawful purpose” to be cited with disorderly conduct.

radicalqueerbrownboy:

An important case demands our support. Crishaun “CeCe” McDonald, a young Black transgender woman faces two counts of second degree murder for defending her friends and herself from physical attacks by a group shouting ugly racist and homophobic insults.

Please contact the Hennepin County Attorney Michael Freeman and demand he drop the charges against CeCe:

612-348-5540 fax * 612-348-2042 * citizeninfo@co.hennepin.mn.us

Please bring this case before local GLBTQ groups, Black Community organizations, Unions and community groups, Occupy assemblies and anywhere people are struggling for freedom and justice. An Injury to One is an Injury to All!

According to the Support CeCe website http://supportcece.wordpress.com:

“Around 12:30 am on June 5, CeCe and four of her friends (all of them black) were on their way to Cub Foods to get some food. As they walked past the Schooner Tavern in South Minneapolis, a man and two women (all of them white) began to yell epithets at them. They called CeCe and her friends ‘faggots,’ ‘niggers,’ and ‘chicks with dicks,’ and suggested that CeCe was ‘dressed as a woman’ in order to ‘rape’ Dean Schmitz, one of the attackers.”

“As they were shouting, one of the women smashed her drink into the side of CeCe’s face, slicing her cheek open, lacerating her salivary gland, and stinging her eyes with liquor. A fight ensued, with more people joining in. What happened during the fight is unclear, but within a few minutes Dean Schmitz had been fatally stabbed.  CeCe was later arrested, and is now falsely accused of murder.”

The coroners report showed Schmitz had a large nazi swastika tattoo.

CeCe now faces a Justice system that is anything but. African-Americans are imprisoned in Minnesota and the U.S. at rates far disproportionate to the population. Black defendants incur greater rates of conviction and harsher sentences than whites, especially when the alleged victim is white.  In fact the CeCe Support Committee has documented four separate recent instances when the local Hennepin County Attorney has declined to press charges when a white person killed an alleged attacker.

Likewise the Criminal Justice system is grossly discriminatory against transgender defendents. Trans people are routinely placed in isolation and/or subjected to increased sexual violence, harassment, and abuse at the hands of prisoners and corrections facility staff. Cece herself “was kept in solitary confinement “for her own protection”; she had no say in this matter. Finally, she was transferred to a psychiatric unit in the Public Safety Facility. It was nearly two months before she was taken back to a doctor to check up on the wound on her face, which by then had turned into a painful, golf ball-sized lump”, according to the CeCe Support Group website.

The Hennepin County Attorney, Mike Freeman, is the Democratic Farmer-Labor Party politician responsible for prosecuting CeCe. Previously Freeman unsuccessfully prosecuted an Anti-Racist Action activist for defending himself from a neo-nazi at an anti-fascist demonstration in 1993. Freeman’s office also led the racist railroading of the young African-American men known as the “Minnesosta 8″ for the shooting of a police officer in 1992.

CeCe had every right to defend herself and her friends from this assault. Black folks, queer folks, and trans people deal with enough insult and abuse from bosses, the police, school, and other official institutions without having to worry about physical attacks just for being who they are. Racist and transphobic violence cannot be tolerated. Silence and inaction will only aid the perpetuation of white supremacy, sexism, homophobia and transphobia inherent in the structure of this oppressive and exploitive system.  The necessary unity to defeat this system requires the solidarity of all of us – not just lowest common-denominator unity that favors the most privileged – but defense of the most oppressed and exploited. As the social crisis sharpens, the need for self-defense from both individual bigots and from a system built on white supremacy and patriarchy will only increase.

A strong support group, based among young transgender activists and including anarchists, has come together to defend CeCe. First of May Anarchist Alliance pledges our solidarity as well. We will work to make this case well known among working class activists and organizers and help to raise the costs for the prosecutor and the system he represents for carrying out this injustice.

First of May Anarchist Alliance

m1aa.org