The anti-trans bathroom and locker room initiative being headed up by a campaign called Just Want Privacy is offically beginning the long slog of collecting signatures to qualify for the ballot.
Because that’s what this initiative would do—it would override the existing protections for trans folks under the state’s nondiscrimination language by requiring that they use not the restroom which best fits their identity, but rather, which fits their sex at birth.
This, of course, represents a basic misunderstanding/ignorance about trans individuals—not to mention in direct contradiction with, you know, medical science—but that’s sure not stopping these alleged humans from creating marketing materials like this:
LOLLLLLL I CAN’T EVEN TELL YOU ALL THE WAYS THIS IS AWFUL.
Anyway, despite only having about two months and change to gather close to 300k signatures (GOOD LUCK), a feat which will likely take literal millions of dollars (which they are not exactly raking in, even with the help of all these bigots!) and may still not end with a spot on the November ballot.
As we have warned about before, this is 100% not actually about the safety of women and children (it, for example, would not have done anything to thwart this recent incident of bathroom grossness at SeaTac airport!). It will protect no women. What it will do is make trans and non binary folks in our community less safe, and will essentially legalize transphobia by business owners, patrons, and schools.
It’s a bad initiative. Don’t sign it. To help, we’ve updated out What to Sign guide:
If you do vote, here’s the ballot initiative number for the creepy anti-trans initiative.
It’s funny that American liberals want to point to American conservatives as being the source of problems for trans people. Not funny, like “haha” but rather, as someone who is trans I’m not particularly thrilled with what the liberals are doing either, and everyone in the American mainstream is costing us our lives, whether it’s those Democrats rekindling fights we trans people already won in Washington state recently, presumably because it’s an election year, or whether it’s liberal media ignoring our spokespeople like Laverne Ćox and Janet Mock, and appointing their own like the problematic Caitlyn Jenner and Zoey Tur or Hollywood liberals turning the spotlight on us without our consent with filth like the Dallas Buyer’s Club and the Danish Girl, spreading lies and revisionist history for a quick buck, and never mind the body count, there’s plenty of blame to go around.
Visibility doesn’t come without cost, and the latest crusade among American liberals as well as American conservatives means at the end of the day we had to step over twice as many bodies of our murdered trans comrades in 2015 than we did in 2014, and this year is looking to be more of the same, likely worse.
But at least everyone that matters is turning a profit, so there’s that.
[ This is older LR content, and I was going to avoid posting it here, but since you vegans chimed in to make it clear that they still haven’t learned a goddamned thing, you forced my hand. I don’t know - maybe the afropunk op-ed wasn’t enough. Maybe you just don’t listen to anyone except other white people - in fact I’m pretty sure that’s the problem, so here, from yours truly, a fellow cracker ]
Veganism has a racism problem.
Veganism has a classism problem.
Veganism has an ableism problem.
In fact, veganism suffers from strikingly similar ills as white-feminism does, and like how black womyn created Womanism in response to white racist feminism, black people have created organizations like Black Vegans Rock (BVR) in response to the racism inherent in veganism - a move which I wish wasn’t necessary but I fully support.
Vegans: Please stop policing other people until you turn inward and take a long hard look at the endemic racism, classism and ableism in your own backyard. You’ve got a lot of work to do.
Most of the problem with political veganism stems from the same problem white feminism does: Too much whiteness and too much money. People who are shielded from the realities of structural oppression have a much steeper learning curve when it comes to analysis of privilege.
As long as political veganism remains overwhelmingly the province of white, able-bodied people - particularly with a middle or upper class upbringing the problem is self-reinforcing. It’s not because white people with this background are “bad”, but because they don’t have the tools and lived experience to address some important issues that lie well outside their realm of knowledge, and those issues, such as racism, classism and ableism are going to be reflected in the movement overall.
Unfortunately, because of the racism, classism and ableism the movement is actually turning people away who aren’t white, able-bodied people with a middle or upper class background. It becomes a cycle.
The way to break that cycle is
a) look to organizations like Black Vegans Rock for cues on how to talk about veganism.
b) Keep your fists pointed upward at the people creating the problem - the capitalists and politicians who are creating the conditions where processed foods with animal products in it are more accessible than healthy food. Punch *up*. Don’t punch laterally or down. Stop criticizing your fellow proles and their eating habits. Unless you know them personally, you don’t know their backgrounds, and you’re in danger of ignoring their lived realities. If you want to have a sincere discussion with your friends about their eating habits, more power to you, but otherwise be mindful of the fact that casting judgement on those you don’t know, particularly from a place of relative privilege almost always leads to problems. Instead, redouble your efforts at criticizing the ruling class who create the conditions that lead to global animal suffering.
As I’ve said many times, if your fist isn’t raised, it’s pointed in the wrong direction.
It’s my boo and I’s new catchphrase for standing up for something important even when you stand (nearly) alone. It’s our own little wry tribute to a cause that seems lost - our Saint Jude.
Sometimes you’re standing out in the rain with just over half a dozen people because the ones you’re there for couldn’t be there themselves. They have fields to work, and families to feed under much worse conditions than we relatively privileged leftists are generally used to.
And when that rain comes down, and a teenage girl flips you off from the back of her mother’s Audi, you might start wondering just how jaded your community is that this girl that probably doesn’t think about politics much at all nevertheless felt it worthwhile to express her contempt for the immigrants that do so much for the community and simply want a fair shake.
Nevertheless, even a small informational picket is important, and so no matter the weather, or the shade from the largely white population that just doesn’t care, this is a stage. And walking off set would be nothing short of a very public failure, The families we stand in solidarity with deserve better. The show must go on.
Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners was the name of an organization started by some gay Londoners that decided they had more common ground than differences with the roughneck coal miners suffering under Thatcher’s Britain. Initially *nobody* supported this little gay org. Not other gay people, not other workers. Not even the striking miners themselves. It was a lonely battle, but they kept at it. Because it was important. We watched a pretty neat movie called “Pride”, about this the night before and it was in our heads.
And if they could endure being gay radicals in the UK in the 1980s, and support the very people that hated them, we can handle a little rain, low turnout and a few dirty looks,
In the end, every action is important. It’s easy to feel the energy and momentum when things go well. When things go the other way, though, that’s when your commitment is tested. Every action is a stepping stone to victory. The victories remind us why we’re here.
We can all learn something from a few brave gay and lesbian activists who stood against incredible odds. Don’t go home and don’t give up.
What the Kurdish people are doing in Rojava is beautiful. It is one of the most important political developments of our time and barely anyone is talking about it.
