School peers crossdress to back trans student

Those darn kids... They make me want to cry (in a good way).

It wasn't a spur-of-the-moment decision that drove Brewster High School student Michael Loscalzo to go to school dressed as a girl.

"Years of taking judgment made me decide to stick up for myself," said Loscalzo, 17. "All my life, people either said I was weird or that I was gay."

The Brewster High School sophomore recently revealed his secret about his desire to become a woman by going to class wearing makeup and feminine attire. His choice has reverberated through the halls.

Loscalzo said school officials warned him Friday that he could be suspended if he continued to cross-dress, a claim that administrators denied yesterday.

In a show of support, several students have organized an "Equality Protest" this week, by showing up to school dressed in garments of the opposite sex.

Yesterday, about a dozen teens gathered at a local deli with boys wearing skirts, wigs and dresses and girls donning caps, cargo pants and T-shirts. They said about 60 students cross-dressed yesterday, though school officials said the number was far less.

"We want Mike to feel more comfortable in his surroundings," said senior Shannon Dodd, 18, one of the organizers. "We're letting the student body know that it's OK to dress this way."...

ENDA loopholes

Today two more legal groups that are in the trenches fighting discriminatory firings added their critiques of ENDA-lite, being the latest to say it's only likely to protect those who are straight-acting. "[It's] a bill no competent attorney representing the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community would ever support" said the National Center for Lesbian Rights.

The Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders said: "As GLAD knows from the calls we get on our InfoLine, the discrimination experienced by many gay men, lesbians and bisexuals is based not directly on their sexual orientation, but on their presentation — their gender identity or expression. They are "too feminine" or "too masculine" and they make employers uncomfortable — and they're fired."

The butch who was thrown out of the Caliente Cab Co. restaurant in NYC (on Pride Day no less) because a bouncer thought she was too butch to pee in the women's restroom is an example of how gender expression affects gays and lesbians without "passing privilege." BTW, it's notable that the main thrust of the lawsuit she filed is that the restaurant violated NYC's protections on gender expression. While the lawsuit also alleged violations of sexual orientation, want to bet the restaurants lawyers will argue they didn't because (and admittedly I'm assuming here) there were other lesbians in the bar. Which is, as GLAD noted, the same argument employers can and do make today.

Employment law professor Jillian Todd Weiss has a detailed look on her blog at the case law on this issue, as do the ACLU, GLAD (PDF link), NCLR and Lambda Legal (PDF link) on their sites. If you don't want the legalese, this post illustrates how ENDA vs. ENDA-lite would play out in real-life scenarios.

To those critics who've challenged these legal groups to point to case law that's problematic is states that only have sexual orientation protections, NCLR points out that: "We know from our own firsthand experience that LGB employees who have experienced discrimination that might be characterized as based on gender nonconformity have a very difficult time finding a lawyer to represent them in those states because of the uncertainty as to whether the law prohibits this type of discrimination. Moreover, even if an LGBT employee finds a lawyer to file such a case, most employment discrimination cases settle and never result in an appeal that establishes precedent. Experienced lawyers thus have to read the case law not just for what it expressly states, but for what it shows is likely to happen in other litigation. What has happened in the federal courts under other anti-discrimination laws shows why we, Lambda Legal, the ACLU, GLAD, and the Transgender Law Center are deeply concerned about the inadequacy of a sexual orientation-only bill."

Bottom line, gender identity/expression protections protect everyone, not just trans people.

& Now the Bad News...

House Democrats are taking out transgender inclusion for ENDA:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco and Reps. George Miller, D-Martinez, Barney Frank, D-Mass., and Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., believe that they lack the votes in the Democrat-controlled House to pass the Employment Non-Discrimination Act if it includes gender identity along with sexual orientation as a prohibited ground for firing an employee.

Frank and Baldwin are the only openly gay members of Congress.

"People now accept the fact that we just don't have the votes for the transgender," Frank said.

Nervous Democrats had been hearing about Republican amendments to the employment bill, Frank said, "that would talk about schoolteachers, and what happens when the kid comes back from summer vacation and teachers change gender. We just lost enough Democrats and we couldn't be sure of the Republicans."

The move put a damper Thursday on what Democrats otherwise were hailing as a landmark day for gay rights.

Feh.

It Passed!

from NCTE's website:

Senate Passes Historic Hate Crimes Bill

The Hate Crimes Amendment to the Defense Authorization Act (S. 1105) was passed on a voice vote of the Senate today, September 27th. Immediately prior to the voice vote, a cloture vote to end debate of the Amendment was passed 60-39 with bipartisan support.This amendment was already passed on May 3rd in the House by a vote of 237-180. NCTE is calling on President Bush to sign the bill with this historic provision included.

Mara Keisling, NCTE Executive Director, says, “While transgender people still have many obstacles to overcome, we are overjoyed that the hard work of so many people is coming to fruition.”

The Hate Crimes Amendment extends the federal hate crimes law to include sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, and disability.

Hate Crimes Vote - Thursday

ACTION ALERT from the National Center for Transgender Equality

On Thursday, the Senate will be voting on Senator Kennedy’s Hate Crimes amendment to the Defense Authorization Act (S.1105). We need you to call your Senators now to urge their support of this critical bill, which would extend hate crimes protections to transgender people.

Please, call the Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121 right now; let them know what state you are from and ask to be connected with your Senators.

The language of the amendment is identical to that passed by the U.S. House of Representatives on May 3, 2007 (H.R.1592). It is vital that you contact your Senator today or tomorrow. As you read this, the Radical Right is mobilizing to oppose the federal hate crimes bill and attempt to prevent its passage in the Senate. They’re using scare tactics and flat-out lies in hopes of killing the amendment. Make sure that your Senators hear your voice and how important this bill is to you and our community.

The Hate Crimes bill would:

• Extend existing federal protections to include “gender identity, sexual orientation, gender and disability”


• Allow the Justice Department to assist in hate crime investigations at the local level when local law enforcement is unable or unwilling to fully address these crimes
  
• Mandate that the FBI begin tracking hate crimes based on actual or perceived gender identity


• Remove limitations that narrowly define hate crimes to violence committed while a person is accessing a federally protected activity, such as voting.

Find your Senators’ contact information.
Background information about the hate crimes bill is available on NCTE’S webpage.

Call your Senators today and urge your friends and family to do the same.

Go Snopes, go!

Snopes debunks scare-tactic claims that the Hate Crimes Prevention Act before Congress, which also contains protections for gender identity, would infringe on freedom of speech of bigots to verbally bash homosexuals and trans people.

(Thanks to Veronica, for passing it along.)

A Week of Direct Advocacy

If nothing else, last week was historic in that the three major transgender advocacy organizations (National Transgender Advocacy Coalition, National Center for Transgender Equality, and the Gender Public Advocacy Coalition) brought in citizen lobbyists to Washington D.C. from across the United States for a week of direct congressional advocacy.Rolling in to DC on Tuesday, I had the chance to see the lobbyists for the National Transgender Advocacy Coalition (NTAC) in action. Tuesday night NTAC sponsored a plenary session or "lobbying 101," instructing those new to lobbying on the importance of presentation and lobbying "do's and dont's."

On Wednesday morning I set out to visit my representative, Julia Carson. I had other business to attend to while in DC, but at the very least I wanted to make sure that I'd talked to my own senators and representative. I've headed many a protest in my day, but this was actually the first time I lobbied a public office holder. For me, anger is much easier to emotion to project publicly than one on one interaction. But like the Byrds song says

"To everything (turn, turn, turn)
There is a season (turn, turn, turn)
And a time for every purpose, under heaven"

This was the time to lobby.

One thing I was shocked by was how friendly even the most conservative offices were. Actually, I got more time to explain why we were there in Richard Lugar's office than I did in Evan Bayh's office.

NTAC uses the buddy system, pairing up veteran lobbyists with the newbies (me, for example). I was amazed at the professionalism and polish of those who went along with me. As I learned later, NTAC and GPAC (who lobbied on Friday) have been lobbying Congress for many years (I did contact NCTE for this post, but they did not return my call).

It was a powerful experience, to see the wheels of power turning. To connect with the people in power that make critical life effecting legislative decisions is very important. It's empowered me to lobby on a local level and I'll be returning to Washington D.C. on a routine basis. If you ever get the chance to go, do it.

crossposted from transadvocate.com