Oregon county to order gender-neutral bathrooms
The Oregonian: Multnomah County in Oregon has one of the first in the country to require single-occupancy, gender-neutral bathrooms in all new construction projects for the county.
The Oregonian reported that the move, coming through an executive order scheduled to be signed Tuesday morning by county board Chairman Jeff Cogen, is intended to eliminate stigmas for transgender county employees and visitors using county-owned restrooms.
Photo: Dana Tims/The Oregonian
More from the Oregonian here.
Multnomah County board Chairman Jeff Cogen, leading the way on this issue. It’s a common criticism of the acronym LGBT that the “T” often gets forgotten, or overlooked in favor of more politically convenient, mainstream issues. But not this time, in Multnomah County, Oregon.
Navy SEAL writes a book about the decision to become a woman. Kristin Beck, formerly Chris, said she wrote the book “to reach out to all of the younger generation and encourage you to live your life fully and to treat each other with compassion, be good to each other, especially in your own backyard (where it be high school or your community).”
Bold move. Awesome to see Kristin so willing to speak out like this.
Republicans in New Hampshire’s state legislature have called for the first elected transgender official in the state – and the nation – to step down in light of a newspaper article that revealed her criminal past. Stacie Marie Laughton, a Democrat, made history this month when she was elected to a seat in the New Hampshire House of Representatives from Hillsborough County, which includes Nashua. But a story in the Laconia Daily Sun revealed that Laughton was a convicted felon who served more than four months in jail for ”conspiracy to commit credit card fraud” in 2008.First Transgender Elected to Office Asked to Resign Over Past Conviction - ABC News (via firthofforth)
How do you repurpose a deeply homophobic hashtag? Like this.
Today in refurbishing homophobic hashtags in a constructive way.
I’m going to have embarrassing moments, and that won’t be fun. But that’s part of what talking to you is about – is hoping people will understand, and hoping they’ll be fairly kind.Against Me! lead singer Tom Gabel • Discussing the decision to begin living as a woman, to start taking hormone treatments and eventually transition to the name Laura Jane Grace. For Gabel, who says she dealt with gender dysphoria privately for years, the scariest part was revealing the decision to her wife. “But she’s been super-amazing and understanding,” she says. Gabel’s story will be discussed in-depth in the latest issue of Rolling Stone.
samstrident asks: re: your recent post on PVC Manning, I don't know if you've reported on this before, but she identifies as a woman, and according to the Manning-Lamo Chat Logs, she goes by Breanna.
» SFB says: While there is evidence — specifically in the chat logs with Lamo — of this, and it has come up in court, we’re largely going off of evidence from correspondence initially intended to be private and court proceedings where it was suggested that Bradley Manning suffered from gender identity disorder in the past, but not whether he continues to do so. What if, for example, Manning never intended on going public until after they were out of the military? What if this was forced out into the public eye against Manning’s will? (While the Lamo chatlogs suggest against this, people can and do change their minds.) We have no problem with calling Manning Breanna. The trouble here is that there’s been no public overture that it’s Manning’s intention (from, say, Manning’s defense attorney, who posted the photo and called him “PFC Bradley Manning”), but Manning is in a situation where’s it’s difficult to say that out loud. I think that’s why you haven’t seen more mainstream outlets run with this story angle — the lines are blurry, and I think it’s hard for any outlet to make a change like this without public confirmation. What do you guys think? — Ernie @ SFB
The article is a relentless, transphobic and disrespectful attack against Chaz Bono that reflect’s Fox News’ support for Dr. Ablow’s stream of heteronormative and offensive articles. Coupled with his earlier (removed) post about Bono and his tirade against J. Crew’s Jenna Lyons, Fox News has repeatedly demonstrated that they have no problem publishing and backing Ablow’s hateful words as reflective of their news organization.
Fox News has previously removed an article Ablow wrote about Bono, following criticism from blogs and other news outlets. The current article, called “Don’t Let Your Kids Watch Chaz Bono on Dancing With The Stars,” promotes the idea that Chaz Bono is dangerous for children, likens sexual reassignment surgery to willingly amputating both of your arms or changing your species, discounts Bono’s transition as someone who “thinks she is a man,” and calls supporting transgender surgery a “tragic celebration.”
Sign our petition and tell Fox News that their continual support for Dr. Ablow - Fox News’ resident psychiatrist, is unacceptable. Transphobia should be and cannot be supported by a national news network.
If you don’t sign it, please send it around.
As we pointed out in our piece about the article, what Dr. Ablow wrote was beyond the pale. It’s a damaging article as a whole, and if you feel that it should be removed, you should probably sign this.
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