10/30/13

ABC 10 blatant lie about LA Schools transgender student called "Fabricated" by school spokesperson

ABC 10 San Diego ran an extremely anti transgender story spending most of the time interviewing a organizer of the petition drive which is trying to force a referendum on AB 1266. The cornerstone of the ABC story was a article about a transgender student who was said to peeping over stall walls.

That sounded a little fishy to Cristan Williams at the TransAdvocate.

Williams called the school district to do a little, you know, a little journalistic fact checking. It turns out the whole thing was fabricated by a parent who opposes transgender student rights and amplified by this ABC local.

The newspaper screen shot that appears on the ABC video does not show the papers name, and for a reason. The source that San Diego ABC affiliate reporter Michael Chen used for her aha gotcha moment is the right wing anti LGBT student newspaper "The College Fix".



Cristian calls it "fact checking". The school spokesperson calls it a "fabricated story".

I call it a blatant lie to get views for the station. If in fact ABC 10 did fact check they wouldn't have mentioned it. There wouldn't have been a story if the truth be known.


Transcript Los Angeles Unified School District: Office of communications Cristan: I’m calling to verify some information that I saw on the channel 10 news. LAUSD: I’m sorry, what information are you trying to verify? Cristan: Sure, sure, on channel 10 news it says that, at least on their website, that a LA high school student complained because a transgender kid was in the restroom peeking over stalls. And so that’s on the news and I just wanted to fact check that claim. Have you actually received complaints of transgender children climbing over stalls to look at other people as they’re in the stalls? LAUSD: I will have to check that for you. I believe that was fabricated, but give me one second. I need to verify. Hold on for a second. Cristan: Okay. LAUSD: Because it’s been a few days since we got that report. So hold on for me. Cristan: Sure. [On Hold] LAUSD: I apologize for the wait. They did get the complaint and it turned out that it was fabricated by one of the parents who opposes transgender students in schools. So it was an unfortunate situation, to have to put the students through, but it was fabricated.

Tavares Spencer: I tried to murder Coco McDonald because she's transgender

Tavares Spencer doesn't deny being told in a text by Coco McDonald prior to meeting that she was transgender. Spencer's defense said that he thought she was only kidding and went ahead with the planned date.

Spencer's attorney said that when he met Coco he planned to have sex, but when her transgender status became undeniable he became 'scared' shooting her motionless body twice then firing four more times as she attempted to flee because he was "in fear for his life".

The prosecution is saying that Tavares Spencer lured Coco to the abandoned house to rob and murdered her because she is transgender.

My 2 cents? Tavares Spencer made the prosecutors case for a hate crime. They are planing on calling Coco to the stand again today.

*Trigger warning...

10/29/13

California Policeman accused of raping transgender woman while on duty

A El Monte police officer has been placed on administrative while being investigated by the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department for allegedly stopping a transgender woman on the street and raping her.

A transgender woman is alleging in a federal lawsuit that a uniformed El Monte, Calif. police officer detained her without legal cause and raped her on his patrol car in a dark and empty parking lot.

The officer was in a marked patrol car and ordered the woman into an alley behind a business at Central and Garvey avenues, where he attacked her, the lawsuit said.

She later retrieved a condom he used and turned it over to authorities, the lawsuit said.

The lawsuit, filed Oct. 18, names as defendants the city of El Monte and an unnamed police officer, seeking unspecified monetary damages.

The plaintiff, who used the pseudonym "Jane Roe" in court documents, alleges the attack happened early Oct. 23, 2012.

Source NBC Los Angeles and LA Times.

10/28/13

Watch "Losing Luke" Award winning documentary about first openly transgender student to graduate a Oklahoma High school

Source Newsday.com: Michael Clark, a freshman with The Film School at Santa Fe University of Art and Design (SFUAD), was recently awarded “Best Documentary” at the inaugural All-American High School Film Festival in New York City, where he also received nominations for Best Director and Best Overall Picture. Clark’s short film Losing Luke is about a transgender girl named Katie (previously known as “Luke”) and her experiences in an Oklahoma high school

Clark’s film was the only full-length student film to screen during the festival’s opening night. Tom Oliva, the festival’s executive director, said organizers wanted to give the 1,500 attendees a taste of the quality of films that would be screened that weekend.

“In the middle of the Bible Belt, many are raised to look down on transgender people,” he said. “With this film, I wanted to help stomp out this ignorance in the community by sharing her story and humanizing her.”



Among thousands of submissions, the top films from each category were sent to a panel of celebrity judges that included Edward Burns, Dylan McDermott, Morgan Spurlock, Diablo Cody, Danny Rose, Kristen Stewart, Carlton Cuse, Henry Winkler and festival founder Andrew Jenks.

Read more at News Day

10/27/13

Cathy Brennan, attorney, OUTS yet another Transgender High School Student

There have been many articles published about the Florence Colorado student who is being attacked by the right wing conservatives. There have been many intentional breaches of journalistic protocol along the way but only one that clearly endangered the youth at the center of this manufactured 'controversy'.

NBC KOAA in Colorado Springs published a very biased video "Transgender Student Causing Controversy" early on naming the transgender student. To date no other media, mainstream, or social has parroted that story or stooped that low to endanger this vulnerable young person's life.

All including the most vehement of anti transgender pundits have at least used a misgendered pseudonym when talking about our transgender student "Jane Doe".

Except one.

Cathy Brennan a TERF (Trans Exclusionaly Radical Feminist) on her Wordpress blog Gender Identity Watch". Brennan has posted her picture and republished the NBC video on Vimeo undoubtedly aware that if she put it on You Tube it would have violated terms of service.

But this isn't the first time Brennan has outed a transgender student.

Cathy Brennan, Lawyer, Maliciously OUTed a 17 Y.O. Transgender Youth To His High School June of 2012, then laughed at his attempts to apologize for making an unacceptable rape joke on twitter in his youthful zeal after being baited into it by? Yes Cathy Brennan.

Brennan tweeting as "GID watch":

You can help put a stop to Brennan's amplification outing of yet another transgender student by reporting her blog to wordpress.com/abuse. I reported Brennan for "content (that) promotes self-harm/suicide.

Transgender youth are especially vulnerable. The Youth Suicide Prevention Program reports that "More than 50% of Transgender youth will have had at least one suicide attempt by their 20th birthday.*.

Report Brennan. Save a transgender youth's life.


Perla Lopez-Roque Transgender ICE detainee wins groundbreaking right to live freely in the USA

North American mainstream media does not show the reality of
of transgender life in Mexico. planetransgender rocked
viewers with this image in 2010 of a decapitated
transgender woman.
Perla Lopez-Roque came to San Diego hoping to escape the extreme violence of her home town of Villa Hemosa Mexico where she beaten and repeatedly raped by the police and the mayor.

Mayor Octavio Manuel Carrillo Castellanos and 17 others were later brutally murdered by drug gangs, many of their decapitated bodies hung from bridges.

Most transgender asylum seekers don't appeal a deportation order  order because of a lack of resources and legal representation.

Lopez-Roque broke the trend. She appealed  but lost her first bid for asylum in the US. The judge ruled that she “did not meet the burden of proof” that would show that the government acquiesced to her mistreatment because of her transgender status. The judge also said the she was a public hazard because of her HIV status and arrests for prostitution between 1990 and 2007. However in a ground breaking ruling she did win the right to appeal.

A federal immigration judge ruled Oct. 21 at a hearing in Los Angeles that the U.S. government could not expel 46-year-old Perla Lopez-Roque, who was seeking asylum on the grounds that her transgender status put her in danger in her native country.

Ms. Lopez-Roque left the court in tears repeatedly saying thank you.

Amicus brief from  The Center for HIV Law and Policy
"Pleadings and Briefs
The petitioner in this case is a transgender woman living with HIV who was arrested for offering sex for money. Although it is undisputed that she experienced "past persecution on account of a protected ground"—her transgender identity —the immigration judge improperly concluded that her HIV status, together with her arrest on sex work charges, trumps her imminent risk of persecution in Mexico and allows deportation. Based on misinformation and misconceptions about HIV, the IJ found that "[t]he type of disease also shows that the alien may be a danger to the community."

The Center for HIV Law and Policy and the organizations it represents on this brief raise two issues: the Immigration Judge ("IJ") erred in denying immigration relief based on the petitioner's HIV status, while simultaneously failing to consider how that status places her at imminent risk for future persecution in Mexico. Amici urged the Board to reverse the IJ's decision and grant Ms. Lopez Roque's application for withholding of removal; or, in the alternative, that the Board remand the case to the IJ with instructions that ensure she is not removed on the basis of her HIV status to Mexico, where she faces near-certain violence as a transgender person living with HIV."

Resource Bank and the Positive Justice Project.

Perla Lopez-Roque's attorny Peter Perkowski Discusses Win for Transgender Pro Bono Client Facing Deportation

Winston & Strawn partner Peter Perkowski was quoted in the Voice of OC article, “Judge: Transgender Detainee is Free to Live in U.S.,” published October 24, 2013.

Mr. Perkowski represented Wilfrido “Perla” Lopez-Roque, an undocumented Mexican transgender individual who faced deportation and was seeking asylum on the grounds that her transgender status put her in danger in her native country.

“In light of the ample evidence demonstrating widespread brutality against [gay/transgender] people,” Mr. Perkowski argued, deportation should be denied under the Convention Against Torture Treaty.
On October 21, a federal immigration judge ruled that the U.S. government could not deport Ms. Lopez-Roque and released her from federal custody. Mr. Perkowski said that the ruling should serve as a beacon of hope to other transgender individuals.

Mr. Perkowski recently received Public Counsel's Immigrants' Rights Project's Volunteer of the Year Award for his years of service in support of immigrant rights.