Women Born Transsexual

From Raw Story: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/03/09/us-uncut-crashes-bank-of-america-tax-doger-conference/

By David Edwards
Wednesday, March 9th, 2011

Several demonstrators crashed Bank or America’s Investor Conference Tuesday to make the point that when corporations don’t pay taxes, governments are forced to lay off public workers.

A blog posting by the anti-austerity group U.S. Uncut called for protesters to gather Tuesday morning at what they called Bank of America’s “Tax Dodger Conference.”

“Call your broker- if you have any shares in BofA, you’re free to come inside to the conference and tell everyone you see about BofA’s tax dodging,” the statement said.

After the conference had gotten underway, demonstrators unfurled a banner reading “Tax Dodger.”

“When corporations like Bank of America don’t pay their fair share of taxes, we have to ‘cut’ teachers, firefighters, and public servants,” one protester shouted. “Do you pay your taxes? So do we. Why don’t corporations pay their fair share, just like everyone else?”

“Bank of America is Bad for America,” the added. “Bank of America pockets billions in profits and bailouts, but $0 in American taxes – that’s immoral and un-American.”

Last month, the same group organized demonstrations at 40 different Bank of America branches.

Continue reading at:  http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/03/09/us-uncut-crashes-bank-of-america-tax-doger-conference/

I first heard about this story on Jezebel. Pair this with all the other stories about rapes and murders and the violence against women become a huge picture of violence and misogyny, one that includes transsexual and transgender women.

Many years ago I was stunned to go for rape counseling and find a feminist run rape crisis center wasn’t able to wrap their minds around the idea that a post-SRS woman with a transsexual history was actually a woman, who could be raped and traumatized by having narrowly escaped being murdered.

Part of it was the stereotype that we were all prostitutes.  Yes even feminist women, lesbian women who swear to hold as a principle “Is this good for women” engage in “slut shaming” and the rating of the legitimacy of the victim.  “Trannies”, hookers, people of color, “white trash”, who live in trailer parks and mobile homes are never seen as really being victims.

Excuses are always made for the murderers or rapists.  The victim deceived us.  We didn’t know she was a “trannie”. We thought she was older than 11.

These fucks gang raped an 11 year old and posted videos of it. People are making excuses for these scumbags.  How are their actions any different fro the actions we condemn when they occur else where?

From Jezebel: http://jezebel.com/#!5780022/media-blows-it-with-pathetic-gang-rape-coverage

Margaret Hartmann —

March 9, 2011

In Cleveland, Texas, 18 young men and boys have been charged with participating in the gang rape of an 11-year-old girl in an abandoned trailer home. As if the event weren’t awful enough, the papers reporting the incident aren’t exactly being, oh, say, fair in their reportage.

In December, police learned of the assault when an elementary school student told a teacher about a cellphone video featuring one of her classmates. Authorities say that on November 28, the girl was offered a ride by a 19-year-old who took her to his house, then ordered her to take her clothes off, saying she’s be beaten if she didn’t. She was raped by several men and boys, then moved to the trailer where more assaults occurred as the attackers took cellphone videos and photographs.

The New York Times published a story today about how the case has torn apart the town, and the paper chooses to focus on the plight of the accused men. The author says the town is wondering “how could their young men have been drawn into such an act?” as if they were tricked into gang raping a child. Then there’s this quote:

“It’s just destroyed our community,” said Sheila Harrison, 48, a hospital worker who says she knows several of the defendants. “These boys have to live with this the rest of their lives.”

Continue reading at:   http://jezebel.com/#!5780022/media-blows-it-with-pathetic-gang-rape-coverage

From The New York Times:  http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/09/us/09assault.html?_r=1&scp=4&sq=rape&st=cse
Vicious Assault Shakes Texas Town
By JAMES C. McKINLEY Jr.
Published: March 8, 2011

CLEVELAND, Tex. — The police investigation began shortly after Thanksgiving, when an elementary school student alerted a teacher to a lurid cellphone video that included one of her classmates.

The video led the police to an abandoned trailer, more evidence and, eventually, to a roundup over the last month of 18 young men and teenage boys on charges of participating in the gang rape of an 11-year-old girl in the abandoned trailer home, the authorities said.

Five suspects are students at Cleveland High School, including two members of the basketball team. Another is the 21-year-old son of a school board member. A few of the others have criminal records, from selling drugs to robbery and, in one case, manslaughter. The suspects range in age from middle schoolers to a 27-year-old.

The case has rocked this East Texas community to its core and left many residents in the working-class neighborhood where the attack took place with unanswered questions. Among them is, if the allegations are proved, how could their young men have been drawn into such an act?

“It’s just destroyed our community,” said Sheila Harrison, 48, a hospital worker who says she knows several of the defendants. “These boys have to live with this the rest of their lives.”

Continue reading at:  http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/09/us/09assault.html?_r=1&scp=4&sq=rape&st=cse

Instead of making excuses for these vicious scumbags they should be rounded up and sent to the darkest hell hole of prison we have, some super max where they would spend 23 hours a day in lock down,

From The Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sexual-justice/compromising-funding-is_b_832290.html

By Jasmine Burnett, Regional Coordinator for SisterSong Women Of Color Reproductive Justice Collective

March 8, 2011

The Planned Parenthood New York March for Women’s Health ignited a voice that said, “We will not be bullied by the racist and oppressive tactics that the Anti-Choice camp is using to drive a wedge between the racial and reproductive justice movements.” The potential cuts in Title X funding and the defunding of Planned Parenthood will pose a significant challenge for poor women and women of color in accessing comprehensive women’s health services.

How is it that the anti-choice camp can force themselves in between our legs despite our faces, and exploit the lived experiences of women of color? They are the same people who say that the Pro Choice advocates and agencies target women of color, thereby participating in what they call “Black Genocide.”

Yet, strangely enough, they want to take away the basic services that provide women access to healthcare, food supplements, job training and access to grants that would allow them to provide healthy communities and safe environments for their families, but no one wants to talk about that.

Imagine, no one asks how you feel as you see hateful, racist, and oppressive propaganda on billboards across the country exploiting your children and demonizing your choices.

Continue reading at:  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sexual-justice/compromising-funding-is_b_832290.html

From Common Dreams: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/03/09-1

by Jim Hightower

Published on Wednesday, March 9, 2011 by Creators.com

The most revealing comments by politicians are rarely revealed. This is because they’re made in unrecorded conversations, when politicos let their guard down.

However, in a recent sting, blogger Ian Murphy recorded a revealing phone call he made to Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker. Murphy pretended to be David Koch, the far-right-wing billionaire who pumped more than a million dollars into Walker’s election last year. The governor is very busy, but he spent 20 minutes regaling the fake David Koch with details of his effort to kill the collective bargaining rights of state workers.

For example, Walker’s power play was being blocked by 14 Democratic senators, who have left the state to prevent any Senate action. Walker giddily told “Koch” that his legislative troops were ramming through a rule to require all senators to pick up their paychecks in person, apparently assuming the 14 absentees would care as much about money as he does and rush back.

The governor was especially excited about his scheme to use state workers as political pawns: “I’ve got layoff notices ready (for five or six thousand employees),” he exulted, delighted to sacrifice them as pressure on the senators to return.

“Beautiful,” responded the Koch masquerader, who then suggested “planting some troublemakers” among the crowds protesting the governor’s union-busting.

“We thought about that,” Walker assured him, but dropped the idea because “the public is not really fond of this.” Besides, he said, the public’s protesting is “not going to affect us.”

Continue reading at:  http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/03/09-1

From Climate Progress: http://tinyurl.com/4fwpk75

March 9, 2011

Speaking at the Center for American Progress Action Fund this week, House energy committee ranking member Henry Waxman (D-CA) railed against the toxic influence of Koch Industries on efforts to fight global warming. Brad Johnson has the story and video.

Waxman, who fought polluters to pass the Clean Air Act of 1990, is dismayed by the level of outright science denial among the Republican Party today, exemplified by their votes to slash and burn environmental protection, and the Upton-Inhofe bill to reverse the scientific finding that carbon pollution threatens public health:

It apparently no longer matters in Congress what health experts and scientists think. All that seems to matter is what Koch Industries think.

Watch a compilation of Waxman’s remarks:

Continue reading at:  http://tinyurl.com/4fwpk75

I absolutely hate having to pass on these stories.  I hate reading about them. I hate the knowledge they happen far more often now than they did in the 1960s/70s. I hate the fact that most often the victim is not only transsexual/transgender but  a person of color and a sex worker.

The right wing religious war against women affect the most vulnerable more than the privileged. Among the least privileged of all people in America are poor African American trans-women.

We have created an Apartheid state with the rise of KKKonservatism and the simpering ultra right wing corporate fascist Republicans who have been selected by the rich to rule over us.

They scapegoat people to distract us from the real problems. They use racism.  They may not be as crude about it as the sheet wearing crackers screaming the “N-word” but the code words they use mean the same to their followers.

Loving consensual sex has been censored from movies and TV.  We no longer have quiet family dramas where real issues are explored the way they were with the Cosby Show, Maude, All In the Family, The Jeffersons etc, etc.  Instead our movies and television shows are awash with blood and violence porn, CGI decapitations and maimings pumped up gender stereotypes and glorification of fictional ultra masculinity.  Thoughtful movies and television shows with real thinking gentlemen and gentlewomen are considered non commercial and called “chick flicks”.

We tell men that if they are not stupid and violent then they aren’t really men.

At the same time we have devastated the working class communities, most particularly the working class communities comprised of people of color.  As early as the Nixon Years the CIA started flooding those communities with hard drugs like heroin and cocaine so they could both use the money to fund secret dirty wars and destroy those communities comprised of people of color.

The results have been devastating.  The results have been the Crips, the Bloods, Mexican Mafia, the Maras, MS13 and hundreds of other gangs built on hopelessness and policies that have created a prison industrial state.

Add to this right wing homophobic religion, black and white, that has made homophobia into a central doctrine along with misogyny.  One of the most absurd arguments I have ever heard regarding anti-bulling and anti-hate crimes measures is that they discriminate against religion.  I’m a non-believer yet when I hear this sort of bullshit I actually want to shove a Bible in to their hands and demand they show me where Jesus told people they should hate the poor, enslave people, do violence against women or harm LGBT/T people.

You see I actually read the freaking Bible back when I was becoming an Atheist.  Some of the stories really sing but the mythology gets put to perverted purposes whether supporting slavery, genocide or bigotry and oppression.

On top of this comes Rap music degrading women as bitches and ‘hos.  This sort of Grand Theft Auto view of the world encourages violence against women.  The glorified ultra masculinity creates a distopian vision where the world of prison relationships where the strong rape the weak extends beyond the prison.

Speaking of Grand Theft Auto, the video game that encourages violence against sex workers.  A fucking video game that encourages the players to used a prostitute, rob her of her hard earned money then murder and mutilate her and this isn’t considered pornography.  Andrea Dworkin probably died of heart break.

Another African American Trans-woman Murdered.  Another name to be remembered.  No ambiguity of words like asphyxiation.  Brutally shot in the head and dragged.

Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!

The the story with the oh so predictable abusive use of male names and pronouns, raping her bleeding corpse, stripping her of the last shred of dignity she tried to have in life where she was given only scraps of decency and zero opportunity.

Fuck!

From WREG, Memphis: http://www.wreg.com/news/wreg-marcal-murder,0,7869905.story

What is the surest sign some one is a closet homosexual?

They are the loudest meanest gay basher in the crowd.  They are right wing and loudly trash LGBT/T folks.

From BBC:  http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8556852.stm

Monday, 8 March 2010

A conservative US state senator who has voted against gay rights measures during his 14 years in office has announced he is gay.

Republican Roy Ashburn came out during a radio interview in California, where he sits on the state legislature.

He has been on leave since his arrest last week on suspicion of driving under the influence.

Mr Ashburn said his votes reflected the way his constituents wanted him to vote, not his own “internal conflict”.

“I am gay… those are the words that have been so difficult for me for so long,” the 55-year-old divorced father-of-four told KERN radio.

Continue reading at:  http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8556852.stm

From Socialist Worker: http://socialistworker.org/2011/03/08/transgender-discrimination

Christine Darosa

March 8, 2011

THE NATIONAL Center for Transgender Equality and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force have released a groundbreaking study that shows the full spread and scale of discrimination against transgender people.

Called “Injustice at Every Turn: A Report of the National Transgender Discrimination Study,” the 220-page report is the product of a three-year project whose goal was to investigate and document the true extent of discrimination that transgender and other gender non-conforming people face every day.

According to the report and the executive summary, researchers talked to 6,456 respondents from all 50 states, the District of Columbia and the U.S. territories, and included people across the entire spectrum of transgender identities, from people who choose to physically transition to another gender, to people who identify as cross dressers, to people who see themselves as genderqueer or as androgynous, or as something else between the two generally recognized genders.

This diversity is significant, because in addition to painting the fullest picture to date of the pervasive mistreatment that transgender people experience, the study also tells us something about the treatment that “masculine” women and “feminine” men–regardless of how they identify–in U.S. society.

THE REPORT is heart-wrenching to read, peppered with devastating statistics and direct quotes from survey participants describing their experiences.

The study found that 65 percent of respondents experienced a serious act of discrimination, defined as “events that would have a major impact on a person’s quality of life and ability to sustain themselves financially or emotionally”–like an eviction, job loss, denial of healthc are, assault, incarceration or being forced to drop out of school due to harassment. Some 23 percent of respondents reported what the study describes as a “catastrophic” level of discrimination–having been impacted by at least three of these types of significant events.

Continue reading at:  http://socialistworker.org/2011/03/08/transgender-discrimination

From The Advocate: http://www.advocate.com/News/Daily_News/2011/03/08/Baldwin_Ratify_ERA/

March 08, 2011

Rep. Tammy Baldwin marked International Women’s Day by reviving the Equal Rights Amendment. By Advocate.com Editors

Rep. Tammy Baldwin, the only out lesbian in Congress, marked International Women’s Day Tuesday by introducing legislation to speed up the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Congress passed the ERA, which would amend the Constitution to outlaw sex discrimination, in 1972. Ratification by the legislatures of three fourths of the states — 38 — was required for it to become law, and it fell three states short when the ratification deadline arrived in 1982. During the 1970s the ERA was the subject of much controversy, with conservative opponents such as Phyllis Schlafly saying it would lead to unisex restrooms and women serving in combat.

Baldwin noted that the deadline for ratification had been extended from seven to 10 years, suggesting that the ERA remains alive and that the deadline can be extended again. Also, she pointed out, the 27th Amendment, known as the “Madison Amendment” and dealing with congressional pay, was ratified by the required number of states in 1992, 203 years after its initial submission.

Baldwin’s bill would remove the deadline for the ERA and stipulate that upon ratification by three more states, it would be added to the Constitution.

“The ERA is intended to ensure equality for women and men in all areas of society,” Baldwin, a Wisconsin Democrat, said in a press release. “It is an immediate and decisive remedy to end sex discrimination in federal and state laws and provides a clear benchmark for judicial interpretation. Achieving equality and justice for all in the United States is fundamental to our democratic principles, economic recovery, and continued leadership around the world. The intent of my resolution is simple: a path to equality for all Americans.”