8/24/13

Billionaire Colonel who gave a million to study transgender Service announces she is transgender


Retired Colonel Jennifer Natalya Pritzker gave 1.35 to Palm center earlier this year to help study transgender peoples feasibility in the service has announced her transition from male to female. The Palm center was instrumental in helping repeal DADT for gay people.

A statement released by email published by chicagobusiness.com said this:

"As of Aug. 16, 2013, J.N. Pritzker will undergo an official legal name change, will now be known as Jennifer Natalya Pritzker. This change will reflect the beliefs of her true identity that she has held privately and will now share publicly. Pritzker now identifies herself as a woman for all business and personal undertakings."

Indra Lusero, the project director of the Palm Center’s Transgender Military Initiative, has commissioned 16 scholars to conduct 11 studies investigating “whether and how the U.S. armed forces could include transgender troops without undermining readiness” — in areas ranging from privacy and medical accommodations to the experiences of foreign militaries and sports programs.

“This academic research will inform an important public conversation by providing facts and evidence about transgender military service and gender expression in armed forces. Militaries around the world are updating their policies, and we are already conducting research in Canada, Britain and Australia to learn whether their trans-inclusive regulations have impacted readiness,” Lusero said in a statement provided to Buzz Feed.


Wanted Dantiier Powell for the murder of Fontana Trans Woman Domonique Newburn

Dantjier-Powell
Dantjier Powell, 18
FONTANA, Calif. (KTLA) — Police continued their search on Friday for an 18-year-old man wanted in connection with the murder of a transgender woman in Fontana.
Dantiier Powell may be trying to leave the state, possibly by bus, police said.
He was believed to be traveling with 25-year-old Jamie Nicole Cotton, of Highland.Powell was described as black, 5 foot 8 inches tall and 155 pounds, with an average build and dark complexion.
Powell was being sought in the murder of 31-year-old Domonique Newburn, who friends said was a transgender woman.
Read more: KTLA


Beating death of Harlem transgender woman Islan Nettles being investigated as a hate crime

Saturday just after midnight, Islan Nettles, a 21-year-old fashion design student was walking down 8th Avenue near West 147th Street right in front of a police precinct, when a group of men started saying some very mean things.

"They were called f****, they were called he-she's, she males, things of that nature," her mother Delores Nettles said.

Police say one of the men was 20-year-old Paris Wilson, who they say punched Nettles, knocked her down, and wouldn't stop.

She was taken to Harlem Hospital with severe head trauma where she slipped into a coma and was pronounced brain dead Tuesday. ~ ABC Local

A spokeswoman for the New York City medical examiner’s office, Ellen Borakove, said on Friday that the death had been ruled a homicide and the cause was “blunt force trauma.”




ABC Local reports

Ms. Nettles, who, according to her LinkedIn page, was an intern assistant designer at Ay’Medici, a Harlem fashion company, was walking with a group of transgender friends on Frederick Douglass Boulevard between 147th and 148th Streets when they encountered several men across the street from the station house of Police Service Area 6, which patrols public housing developments in the area.

When the men concluded Ms. Nettles and her friends were transgender, a scuffle broke out, the police said, with punches thrown and homophobic slurs shouted.

A 20-year-old Harlem man, Paris Wilson, was arrested late Saturday and, according to a criminal complaint, was charged in the case by the Manhattan district attorney’s office with misdemeanor assault and harassment. At the time of the arrest, police officers did not realize that the confrontation might have involved bias. At some point later, prosecutors said, a witness went into the Area 6 station house and told the police that homophobic language had been used.

The Police Department’s hate crimes task force is now investigating the case.

Prosecutors also said that more, and graver, charges could be filed against Mr. Wilson, who on Friday remained free on bail.




8/23/13

MLK's "I've Got A Dream" now includes LGBT people because "We Have a Dream"


Martin Luther King said during his famous speech that "We can not walk alone" reminding his followers that there were white brothers and sisters among their ranks that day.

An epiphany of historical significance that the LGBT community has built our success on. But  MLK did not mean to include the LGBT community in "we". So for the record from day one we were "We" and continue to be "We".

The organizing genius behind the March on Washington was civil-rights veteran Baynard Rustin. What is less-known now, or then, is that he was gay. That might have not been known at all had Rustin not been arrested on what were then called morals charges (he was arrested in 1953 along with two other men in a parked car in Pasadena, Calif.)

King had kept Rustin at a distance under pressure from other black leaders. The late Rep. Adam Clayton Powell Jr. of Harlem had forced Rustin off of the board of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and Roy Wilkins, head of the NAACP, didn't want Rustin running the 1963 march.
But Rustin's mentor, A. Philip Randolph, head of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, insisted. It was Randolph's idea to have a March on Washington in 1941 to protest segregation—and it was called off only when President Roosevelt desegregated the defense industry. So when the idea surfaced of a March on Washington in 1963, to demand justice on the 100th anniversary of the end of slavery, Randolph's word counted above all others. And it was Rustin who did much of the speaking that August day.
Sen. Strom Thurmond denounced Rustin as a communist and homosexual in a floor statement, but the press didn't pick it up. Rustin died in 1987 and President Obama will present him, posthumously, with the Medal of Freedom.

I didn't know that the greatest speech ever made was being held hostage for profit. Mother Jones has brought it to my attention that commercial enterprises must pay a hefty fee to publish MLK's I've Got A Dream Speech.

I'm a poor blogger who never had an advert on my blog for just that reason. It allows me the freedom of speech.


So here for your viewing pleasure one of the most important moments in American history, but first a little about one of the most important figures in LGBT people struggle for our shared dream.



 I've Got A Dream.




8/22/13

Watch Chelsea Manning's Lawyer Announce her transition

The Army private's statement, provided to TODAY exclusively, signed "Chelsea E. Manning."
TODAY
The Army private's statement, provided to TODAY exclusively, signed "Chelsea E. Manning."

Subject: The Next Stage of My Life

I want to thank everybody who has supported me over the last three years. Throughout this long ordeal, your letters of support and encouragement have helped keep me strong. I am forever indebted to those who wrote to me, made a donation to my defense fund, or came to watch a portion of the trial. I would especially like to thank Courage to Resist and the Bradley Manning Support Network for their tireless efforts in raising awareness for my case and providing for my legal representation.

As I transition into this next phase of my life, I want everyone to know the real me. I am Chelsea Manning. I am a female. Given the way that I feel, and have felt since childhood, I want to begin hormone therapy as soon as possible. I hope that you will support me in this transition. I also request that, starting today, you refer to me by my new name and use the feminine pronoun (except in official mail to the confinement facility). I look forward to receiving letters from supporters and having the opportunity to write back.

Thank you,

Chelsea E. Manning
Source Free Manning


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It's ok to discriminate (while making informed decisions) It's Not ok to discriminate to validate biased bigotry

From the I couldn't make this up file. The right wing hate publication "One News.com" " an column  authored by  Mr. Nate Kellum, chief counsel for the Center for Religious Expression (Memphis, TN), a legal entity dedicated entirely to the protection of religious speech.

Nate KellumCalifornia’s new “transgender” law mandates school districts allow students to participate in school activities and use facilities based on their “gender identity” – and that opens a Pandora’s Box of problems.


The word “discriminate” carries with it a regrettable connotation. Mere mention evokes thoughts of Jews in concentration camps, elections without female participation, and water fountains marked “whites only.” But to discriminate, according to Merriam-Webster, is to simply note a distinction.
Detecting differences is not always bad; in fact, quite often, it only makes sense to discriminate.


Mr. Kellum  didn't bother to include the full definition of discrimination just the one that fit his needs in validating his argument. I think California has been a little less discriminatory in its understanding of word discrimination while passing AB 1266. . From the same source that Mr. Kellum used to make his incredibly inane argument, the merriam-webster.com dictionary :

dis·crim·i·nate

 verb \dis-ˈkri-mə-ˌnāt\
dis·crim·i·nat·eddis·crim·i·nat·ing

Definition of DISCRIMINATE

transitive verb
1
a : to mark or perceive the distinguishing or peculiar features of
b : distinguishdifferentiate <discriminate hundreds of colors>
2
: to distinguish by discerning or exposing differences; especially: to distinguish from another like object
intransitive verb
1
a : to make a distinction <discriminate among historical sources>
b : to use good judgment
2
: to make a difference in treatment or favor on a basis other than individual merit <discriminate in favor of your friends><discriminate against a certain nationality>
Using his subjective quotation of dictonary Mr. Kellum said that: "Ignoring the significance of this discernment, (presumably of the word discrimination) the State of California recently passed a transgender student law that blurs recognizable distinctions between males and females in their public school system. 

No Mr. Kellum it is not OK to use a skewed quote from the Merriam Webster dictionary to validate your hatred of transgender people. My suggestion Mr Kellum? You should  read your bible.