Wednesday, May 25, 2016
Immigration and Customs Enforcement has plan to open a new detention center in Texas that will include a unit to specifically house transgender immigrants.
An article on Fusion says the Prairieland Detention Center will open in November in Alvarado, Texas—around 30 minutes south of Fort Worth—and "will operate with the agency's most advanced care guidelines for transgender detainees."
According to Fusion, an ICE spokesperson says each detainee will have an individualized detention plan, "covering items such as searchers, clothing options, hygiene practices, medical care, and housing assignments." The detention center will house about 700 people, with a 36-bed unit for transgender individuals, the article says.
The new facility will be operated and managed by Emerald Correctional Management, a private prison corporation that acknowledges on its website it is “ not the biggest” company in the private prison industry. The company, which manages a total of six facilities, distinguishes itself by saying it doesn’t “warehouse detainees” and that it’s changing the culture of privatization.There are concerns for how the community of Alvarado, a town with about 4,000 residents, will react.
No one knows how the local Alvarado community will respond to news of transgender detainees being detained in their city. But many of the elected officials in the city of Alvarado and in Johnson County pride themselves in their conservative values. More than 25,000 of the county’s votes went to Republican candidates in the latest election, with the majority of votes going to Ted Cruz, the former presidential hopeful who believes allowing young transgender girls to use bathrooms that correspond with their gender identity is “lunacy.” (Fewer than 4,000 votes in the county for the Democratic candidates, who support more civil rights for transgender individuals.)A six-month investigation by Fusion, a news outlet run by ABC and Univision, found that some 75 transgender people are detained by ICE at any given day, with about 90 percent of them being transgender women. Fusion refers to a report by the Government Accountability Office that shows one of 500 detainees is transgender, and they make up one of five victims of sexual assault in detention.
Tags: mariposas sin fronteras , immigration and customs enforcement , transgender , LGBT , nicoll hernández-polanco , alvarado texas , prairieland detention center , fusion , raúl grijalva , u.s. house of representatives
Arizona has joined 10 other states in a federal lawsuit against President Barack Obama's mandate asking public K-12 schools and post-secondary schools to allow transgender children and youth use the locker room and bathroom of the gender they identify with.
The lawsuit calls Obama's mandate "federal overreach," and focuses on setting rules about who should enact these guidelines.
The lawsuit—which includes Texas, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Maine, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Utah, West Virginia and Wisconsin—was presented by Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich and Superintendent of Public Instruction Diane Douglas on behalf of the state's Department of Education. The Heber-Overgaard Unified School District is a plaintiff as well, according to a press release from the superintendent's office. The suit comes after Obama and the Departments of Justice and Education said schools have to protect the rights of transgender students. Schools that discriminate transgender students could face losing federal funding.
North Carolina recently issued an anti-LGBT law, House Bill 2, which forces transgender individuals into bathrooms that differ from their preferred gender and prohibits cities from creating laws protecting LGBT people. The law, which the DOJ says discriminates and violates civil rights, has fueled national debate about protection of transgender rights and alleged concerns from conservatives about people using the bathroom that doesn't match the sex they were assigned at birth.
The press release says,
Tags: barack obama , diane douglas , mark brnovich , lgbt , transgender , students , department of justice , department of education , arizona , bathroom bill
Wednesday, April 27, 2016
After five years as the head of the UA's Institute for LGBT Studies, Susan Stryker announced on her Facebook page today that she is leaving the position.
Perhaps one of Stryker's biggest accomplishments at the UA is the formation of the world's first-ever transgender studies degree. Most recently, Stryker had also been in talks with the UA administration and the state about how to provide inclusive health care options for transgender faculty, staff and their family members.
In her Facebook post, Stryker says she will continue to teach gender and women's studies at the university in the future, but she will take a one-year leave of absence to continue working on a book about how gender has changed in the U.S. since the 19th century.
I feel extremely fortunate that I have the privilege not only of being adequately compensated for doing work that I find meaningful, but of prioritizing what dimension of that work I'm most led to do at a particular moment. At this moment, I need to express more and administer less. I'm very much looking forward to the year ahead, which promises to be a refreshing mix of working from home in San Francisco where I'll get to spend more time with my sweetie and less time commuting back and forth to Tucson, some fun international travel, and some opportunities for secluded writer's retreats.
Tags: susan stryker , ua institute for lgbt studies , tucson
Monday, April 25, 2016
A jello wrestling benefit and auction for the Southern Arizona AIDS Foundation is held on Saturday, April 23 on 4th Avenue and 7th Street. The evening saw multiple drag performances and several wrestling match ups throughout the jello shot-filled evening of generous donations.
Tags: Jello wrestling , SAAF , southern arizona aids foundation , benefit , auction , 4th avenue , Tempest DuJour , Slideshow
Friday, April 22, 2016
The workshop, which runs from 1 to 2:30 p.m. in the library's lower level meeting room, will encourage attendees to explore their identity and address the dynamics of power and privilege in their lives. The workshop is for LGBTQIA individuals and people in solidarity.
The poetry performance and Q&A will begin at 3 p.m. and is free and open to the public.
Here's a little about J Mase III from the event's press release.
Tags: lgbt , lgbtqia , poetry , art , workshop , identity , poetry reading , Video
Friday, April 8, 2016
Jessica Williams, national treasure and feminist superhero, had a segment on Wednesday's Daily Show highlighting the struggles trans people face on a daily basis.
In the segment, Williams interviews trans woman Meagan Taylor, who was once reported to the police for being "a bit unusual," and a panel of other trans people about the bigotry they experience on a daily basis.
Williams also talks to Colorado chaplain and lawmaker Gordon Klingenschmitt, who decided to let this combination of words come out of his mouth while on camera:
“They [the transgender community] not only want to be confused with their own identity, they want the rest of us to be confused with them. Now they want the government to join them in that pretense. They’re making us into liars.”Nooooope.
Tuesday, April 5, 2016
Not only are these bills cruel and ignorant, they also make no sense. Here's why:
Tags: bathroom bill , Houston bathroom bill , North Carolina bathroom bill , LGBT , transgender , trans , Video
Wednesday, February 24, 2016
It's a sad well-proven fact that the criminal justice system overwhelmingly targets low-income individuals and people of color. But the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community also faces disproportionate discrimination and incarceration rates. This issue worsens with LGBT people of color and those living in poverty.
As a new report points out,
A gay teen is forced [out] of his home by his parents because of his sexual orientation and is harassed and arrested by the police for sleeping on the street. A black transgender woman is arrested under suspicion of prostitution just because of her gender identity. A bisexual parolee can't find a home because she's not legally protected from housing discrimination and she also has a criminal record. A lesbian woman in prison is assaulted by a correctional officer. A transgender woman who is an undocumented immigrant is placed in a men's facility, in isolation, simply because she is transgender.The report—Unjust: How the Broken Criminal Justice System Fails LGBT People—co-authored by the Center for American Progress and the Movement Advancement Project, looks into the experiences of many LGBT people—a community that, the report finds, is overrepresented in the criminal justice system.
Tags: Unjust: How the Broken Criminal Justice System Fails LGBT People , center for american progress , movement advancement project , lesbian , gay , bisexual , transgender , LGBT , prison , criminal justice system , solitary confinement
Thursday, February 18, 2016
Afrikweer is the brainchild of Bev Tumelo and Javetta Laster. Initially conceived of as a photo project, it has grown into a uniting force for people of African descent in Tucson who identify somewhere on the LGBTQIA+ spectrum.
Tumelo and Laster met three years ago when Laster moved to Tucson from New York. Laster had only planned to stay in Tucson for a few months, but she fell in love with the desert. Sticking around, for Laster, meant contributing.
“If a place is somewhere you can really take root, then you should also do things to uplift and give back to the community that’s helped you,” she says.
Tags: afrikweer , tucson , black , lgbt , queer , community info , art , photography , documentary , opening , exhibit , bev tumelo , javetta laster
Wednesday, February 17, 2016
The South Dakota Legislature passed a bill Tuesday that would require students at public schools to use restrooms based on their “chromosomes and anatomy” at birth, meaning transgender youth would be prohibited from using a bathroom of the gender they identify with.
If the governor signs the measure into law, South Dakota would become the first state in the nation to issue a statute of this kind.
This is "a bill that targets vulnerable transgender students for discrimination and could cost the state millions of dollars in federal education funding. Lawmakers heard from South Dakota parents, teachers, students, school counselors, clergy, and mental health professionals who wrote emails, and traveled to Pierre from all corners of the state to testify and demonstrate the ways in which this bill does real harm to transgender students," said a prepared statement from Heather Smith, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of South Dakota. "The only people to testify in support of this harmful, discriminatory bill were lobbyists—not one South Dakota citizen testified to the necessity of this bill. And that’s because it’s not necessary and we don’t need discrimination codified. South Dakota stands to lose."
"It begs the question: do our state politicians truly represent the people of South Dakota, or do they represent outsider lobbyists and interest groups. Governor [Dennis] Daugaard should listen to his actual constituents and veto this bill and send a strong message that discrimination isn’t a South Dakota value and there’s simply no place for it in our schools, community, and state.”
Tags: south dakota , bathroom bill , american civil liberties union , southern arizona gender alliance , transgender awareness week , transgender , gender identity , students
