Yet Another Trans Woman Shot In Memphis, Tennessee

We need...

1) Universal health care that includes treatment and surgery for transgender citizens.

2) Strict Federal employment and housing non-discrimination laws covering transgender citizens.

These are the only things that will get transgender people off the streets or otherwise out of harm's way.

Many who don't work as prostitutes live in their cars and slum housing because they can't find well-paying jobs or are scrimping to pay for hormones and surgeries.

This is just another example of how our society fails to address important health and safety issues.  

When you look for the bad in mankind, expecting to find it, you surely will.

- Abraham Lincoln.

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by: Fritz @ Sat Dec 27, 2008 at 18:12:59 PM CST

Uh yeah, good luck with that.

ENDA, even if passed, would do absolutely nothing for situations like this, or for transpeople in general. Only the ignorant, or those who showed a pervasive trend of non compliance would ever get caught and punished for their bigotry.

In the city I live in, we have an inclusive ordinance, but I am still unemployed. In at least two instances I know that my being trans was what kept me from getting hired. Can I prove it? Of course not, they were not stupid enough to come out and say, "we don't hire trannies". Most people rarely are. It is easy to tell though, if you know the signs.

The only thing that will change people's attitudes, is a change in society and how it views transpeople. Education is the start to that change, the rest is a matter of time.

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by: diddlygrl @ Sat Dec 27, 2008 at 22:57:25 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Faiures of Society,

  You bet it is, and you nailed the main problem, SOCIETY.  The Majority calls Society a "Christian" Society.  Beating and shotting people have become the good acts of "Christians" in this country.

 We are a Society that has an awful industry.  The Anti-LGBT industry, and these mother fuckers make a boat load of money hating LGBT people.  This a SICK.

 The HATE the GAY industry will only fail when there is no money to be made and the GAY DEFENCE is abolished.

 Thank you Fritz for your on going support of Transgender People.

If I make sense? it was quite by accident.

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by: HappyCat @ Sun Dec 28, 2008 at 00:03:15 AM CST

[ Parent ]

And we need...

Obama to work hard on that.  I'm hopeful and can't wait for his ass to move in.

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by: konagod @ Sat Dec 27, 2008 at 18:44:20 PM CST

Absolutely disgusting

I am so sad to hear of another victim of trans violence in my former state of residence.  This madness simply has to stop.  

vanhattan

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by: vanhattan @ Sat Dec 27, 2008 at 18:54:50 PM CST

Fritz, amen amen amen amen....

   This is a medical condition, a clinical one with all the legitimacy of any other.
Why is this the one that keeps people from having decent jobs, why from being victims of casual and cruel violence and indifference from law enforcement?

  Gender is not now, nor ever was one of morality, but simply being.

 I am so sick and sad at this news.
It's no better here in Los Angeles. There is a particular street known for the trans kids who are on it. They break my heart.
Especially because so many of those young people have been so kind to others when they can be.

  The potential to do much good in the world is there, and wasted, but for prejudice.

 Fritz, none of the things you call for are unreasonable to want or expect.
None of them.

  Invest in the LGBT community well and without prejudice, the returns would be CONSIDERABLE.
Look at all that's happened IN SPITE of the typical prejudice and isolation.

 Why the opposition acts like such investment would be wasted, I don't know. It's so unfair and cruel.
I'm going to try REALLY hard not to cry over this one...and get MAD and go into ACTION...as I always do.

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by: Regan DuCasse @ Sat Dec 27, 2008 at 19:40:50 PM CST

Is it time to call in an outside agency?

I mean obviously some members of the the Memphis Police force are looking the other way if not participating in these crimes, especially after what happened with Duanna Johnson.
Is this a matter for the FBI? Or for the state investigators?
God I am so angry about this.............

Transfolk need to be included in all anti-discrimination legislature and our community needs to demand it.  We can't compromise with this issue in order for any legislation to pass.

I am wondering and I hope someone knows, but what are the laws (if any) post surgery, about how a transperson's gender is able to be stated on their drivers license?  And are you allowed to receive a new SS#, or can you legally change the name attached to the SS#?
Do we need some new ways of going about this?  I think that if your drivers license is changed to match your gender and if you SS# matches your gender and not your chromosomes then wouldn't it be easier to be who you really are?
I think that the ultimate goal of a transgender person would be to be completely who they are really.
I hope this made sense, I don't know how else to state it.

"They say that time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself." - Andy Warhol



"Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction" - Blaise Pascal

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by: TruthandLove @ Sat Dec 27, 2008 at 23:19:06 PM CST

The federal government doesn't define gender.

States are allowed to set their own standards. About half the states allow people to change the sex on their birth certificates after having GRS, and about half don't. And, many states allow changing the markers on driver's licences, and many don't.

We'd have to do some research to determine what the rules are for Tennessee.

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~~Autumn~~

As if there were safety in stupidity alone.
--Henry David Thoreau

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by: Autumn Sandeen @ Sun Dec 28, 2008 at 12:07:37 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Tennessee won't allow changes to Birth Certificates

They are one of three states, Ohio and Idaho are the others two, that will not change the birth certificate no matte what kind of physical changes have been made.  This site will explain the rules in various states; http://wiki.susans.org/index.p...

Social Security will change the name and issue a new card when given proof of a legal name change and will change the gender marker if proof of surgery is provided.  The type of proof and type of surgery is not specifically defined by the SSA regulations.

Since Tennessee won't change the birth certificates it seems unlikely that they would change driver's licenses.  The regulations are murky about that. See here, http://wiki.susans.org/index.p... for details on other states.

The laws governing identification and gender are inconsistent, frustratingly vague and subject to bureaucratic whim in far too many places.  It really is a lottery based on where you were born and where you live (and often hinges on how the person doing the paperwork feels about you).  It's one of the legal minefields that trans people have to traverse when applying for jobs, credit and other things needed to live a life in modern society.

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by: Emelye Waldherr @ Sun Dec 28, 2008 at 17:23:29 PM CST

[ Parent ]

They are not alone

In Texas you can change the marker on the Drivers license with a court order, which can only be gotten after surgery in most counties.

You are not supposed to be able to change the sex on the birth certificate. However, some people have gotten lucky and whoever processed the request did change it.

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by: diddlygrl @ Mon Dec 29, 2008 at 01:38:04 AM CST

[ Parent ]

Here's an opportunity...

Due to economic inequity, so many of the transfolk on the streets & in the sex industry are people of color. If only someone uniquely qualified to understand that injustice--the African-American religious communities--would step up & show compassion and inclusion. That would surely ease the transfolks' plight as well as making it clear that the idiots who put forth the "meme that will not die" have even less of a leg to stand on than they already do.  

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by: hardcorps80204 @ Mon Dec 29, 2008 at 13:15:52 PM CST