Transgender Gestapo Coming to City of Binghamton
By Jim Willis on Oct 29, 2008 in City Council, Government & Politics, Society & Culture | Printable Version
A Binghamton City Councilman (Sean Massey, pictured right), from the district I moved from when I left Binghamton, is proposing legislation that would re-label abnormal as normal inside the city limits. The headline in today’s Press & Sun-Bulletin says this: City councilman proposed panel on human rights: Commission would fight discrimination. Sounds so wholesome and warm and fuzzy, doesn’t it? Here’s how the article begins:
BINGHAMTON - Adopting a child, using a public restroom, even obtaining a passport can be more difficult for people who don’t present themselves as their born gender.
Despite state laws banning discrimination based on sex, gender, race and religion, there are no such protections for transgender New Yorkers.
A Binghamton councilman is looking to change that for residents of his city.
“This community prides itself on being fair and just,” said Sean Massey, D-5th District, “and if there are people that are being left out of that, then we need to provide them with protections.”
The council is considering a comprehensive human rights law, guarding residents against discrimination in employment, housing, credit, education and public accommodations. The law would add protections for transgender residents, who are not mentioned in state or federal anti-discrimination laws. So far, similar laws have been passed in New York City, Albany, Rochester, Ithaca, Buffalo, Suffolk County and Tompkins County.
The Binghamton Human Rights Act also would create a city human rights commission, which would oversee discrimination cases.
This new so-called human rights commission (let’s call it what it is: the transgender gestapo) would unconstitutionally be empowered to hear cases and make binding decisions with the full power of a court. They could also choose to “direct aggrieved parties to the proper state and federal agencies.”
Here is the comment I left on the article at the P&SB website:
This is the kind of garbage hard left socialists push when they gain power, as has the Citizen Action Council (formerly known as the Binghamton City Council). No longer is wrong wrong and right right. Now the most extreme perversions are relabled as a “rights” and “choices”. And if you disagree with said rights? They’re going to “refer aggrieved parties to the proper state and federal agencies.” Translation: They’ll throw you in jail if you dare to disagree with them. Welcome to the Obamanation. And get used to it.
My take: If you’re a MAN, go to the gents. If you’re a WOMAN, go to the ladies room. And if you’re so screwed up you don’t know what you are: DON’T ADOPT a kid and screw them up too.
Think this kind of garbage will only happen in “the liberal northeast”? When/if Obama is elected, this kind of extreme social engineering will spread over the entire country. The night is coming, and I fear it will be a long one.
Technorati Tags: Binghamton City Council, Sean Massey, transgender, human rights, perversion
Danielle | Oct 29, 2008 | Reply
You do realize the earth is round, right?
Do you honestly think a person would choose to put themselves in a heavily persecuted minority by choice?
What about intersex folk? Those born with indeterminate sexual organs, or those developing on the default female pattern despite having a Y chromosome due to Androgen Insensitivity?
Was Michael Reimer a boy or a girl? Where do you draw the line between male and female? Chromosonally? I’m sure the women that have AIS will disagree, so will the men with Kleinfelters despite having XXY. Is it socialization? Obviously not since people break that socialization and transition. Is it genitals? What about the boys born with micropenis, but surgically altered before they even leave the hospital to make them into women. How many of them grew up to accept their gender role?
Gender isn’t as concrete as you’d like to think it is. Cat scans show the male-assigned transsexual has a brain configuration of a genetic female, Australian scientist just announced their findings that male-assigned transsexuals have a higher prevalence of a specific longer gene strain then men that are happy in their assigned genders. (Both gay and straight)
So, when this all comes out that there is a genetic predisposition coupled with environmental factors in utero that determine if a person is male brained or female brained, independent of their genitals, how are you going to feel?
You’re espousing having a christian faith - aren’t you supposed to love the sinner and not cast judgement lest ye be judged?
Show some basic human compassion for people that are obviously suffering horribly.
- One pissed off Transsexual.
Jim Willis | Oct 29, 2008 | Reply
Danielle - First, thank you for taking the time to comment. I appreciate all comments on this blog. Your comment has provoked me to reflect. I am sometimes guilty of going a bit to far with my rhetoric when I am passionate about a topic. And sometimes, as you point out, my Christian faith does not readily shine through. So I will take your criticism to heart that I have gone too far over the line with my characterization of people who are transgendered with unkind labels. I ask for your forgiveness on that count, and will revise my post with respect to name calling. I do not wish to add to anyone’s suffering and I don’t want to detract from the force of my argument.
My view is this: Individuals, including people of any and all sexual preferences, are already protected by state and federal laws. Have you been discriminated against with respect to a job? Or housing? I seriously doubt it. The existing law is sufficient. Massey is proposing a commission that will be created to solve a problem that does not exist and has great potential to be misused against people who disagree with what is called transgendered science and its resulting conclusions.
I never ask about sexual preferences when I hire someone–it makes no difference to me. That is, I don’t go out of my way to discriminate against anyone, including a transgendered person. So why would you force companies and organizations to have unisex restrooms? And why would you force local school districts to teach transgendered issues? Etc. It seems to me these are special rights being granted to a small group of people at the expense of the general population.
What I see in Mr. Massey and the rest of the Binghamton City Council is a group bent on remaking society the way *they* believe it should be. They can’t win in the arena of public opinion–so they achieve political power in order to force their views on others by misusing the law. I am very much a live and let live person. My simple request is that they do the same and not force me to agree with their view of reality. You cannot force me to think a certain way any more than I can force you to think a certain way. So why force it on people?
I’m sure it’s clear that you and I will disagree on this issue. But let me reiterate that I respect you as a person–all life is precious. I wish you well.
Jim
Zoe Brain | Oct 29, 2008 | Reply
You know, I’ve heard this kind of thing before… oh yes, here it is:
Of course your views are completely different, right?
Anger and confrontation does no good. I’ve found that views like yours usually come from decent people with good intent, frustrated by the snake-oil merchants peddling fashionable BS and calling it “truth”.
Except… in this case you really don’t know what you’re talking about. That’s not your fault, “Klinefelter Syndrome”, “Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia”, “Harry Benjamin Syndrome”, “Complete Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome” and the like aren’t exactly common topics of breakfast conversation. Worse, everyone is taught at school that “46xy is male, 46xx is female”, and that’s it.
The trouble is, there are people with 45x, or 47xxy, or have mixes of cell lines such as 46xy/47xxy or 45x/46xy. There are people with 46xy who have given birth, and 45xx who have fathered children.
People who don’t fit the standard model are rare. Less rare than you think though, about 1 in 60. That’s 5 million in the USA alone.
Now most are asymptomatic, they may not even know. They just have difficulty having children, or maybe not even that. But about 1 in 1000 people, still 300,000 in the US, they have real problems.
For example, individuals with 5alpha-reductase-2 deficiency (5alpha-RD-2) and 17beta-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase-3 deficiency (17beta-HSD-3) and 46xy chromosomes are often raised as girls. They look female at birth. But later, they masculinise, and some can even father children.
There’s maybe 10,000 of them in the US, mainly from the Dominican Republic, where the rate of this is 1 in 90, not 1 in 40,000.
Transsexuality is pretty much proven to be an Intersex condition now. The autopsies and brain scans using fMRI have shown that TS people have cross-gendered brains. This leads to a cross-gendered personality, though we’re not sure why yet.
There are degrees of it, some can live with being a “boy in a girl body”, some can’t, and either suicide or seek hormonal and often surgical treatment.
They get murdered at a rate 17 times the national average, by people with opinions like yours, but who think actions speak louder than words. People who see them as Freaks, Perverts, and Dangers To Society.
Me, I’m Intersexed rather than Transsexual. One of the really rare varieties, a natural change from looking male to looking female. But I knew I was a girl at age 7, and I tell you, being a “woman trapped in a man’s body” really, really felt wrong, awful and perverse.
Please have a look at BiGender and the Brain to see what’s involved here.
That’s the Science.
To see the social consequences, please look at the Transgender Day of Remembrance. That might reach you even if the dry, dusty numbers and talk about Amydala and Hypothalamus doesn’t.
Autumn Sandeen | Oct 29, 2008 | Reply
To answer your comment, my best friend Vicki Estrada’s story was told on the U.S. House floor by our Congresswoman — Rep. Susan Davis. A YouTube of her floor speech is here.
FindLaw Writ has documented major cases of employement discrimination against transsexuals here and here.
So on both a personal level and in an expanded way, discrimination based on gender identity/expression has impacted my life.
With regards to the Gestapo reference:
I’m a 20-year U.S. Navy veteran; I’m a disabled military veteran with a 100% service connected disability rating from the VA. I’m also transgender — a transsexual belonging to the Transgender American Veterans Association.
So, as both a military vet and a transgender activist, I take a lot of offense to having my peers and I referred to with a Nazi reference. We’re not Nazi’s — calling us “Gestapo” dimininishes those who killed millions of Jews, Germans with mental and physical disabilities, homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Roma (”Gypsies”), Poles, and Soviet prisoners of war. Millions perished in this state–sponsored tyranny. Transgender activists want civil rights and protections under the law; comparing us to those who killed millions is — well, pretty offensive. And, as a veteran, I find it really offensive.
Boo | Oct 30, 2008 | Reply
Mr. Willis- there is a basic flaw in you follow up comment: being transgendered isn’t a sexual preference. Transsexuality/transgenderism is about who you are, not with whom you want to sleep. As to whether being transgendered is covered under sex discrimination, there are conflicting precedents.
“What I see in Mr. Massey and the rest of the Binghamton City Council is a group bent on remaking society the way *they* believe it should be. They can’t win in the arena of public opinion–so they achieve political power in order to force their views on others by misusing the law. I am very much a live and let live person. My simple request is that they do the same and not force me to agree with their view of reality. You cannot force me to think a certain way any more than I can force you to think a certain way. So why force it on people?”
Although religious conservatives tend to hate this comparison, it bears being said: this was EXACTLY the same argument put forth against desegregation.
Danielle | Oct 30, 2008 | Reply
Jim-
I haven’t been out long enough to face discrimination. I already owned my home, I work for a company which does have an anti-discrimination policy in place, and I work for a wonderful understanding manager. This doesn’t mean that transphobia doesn’t exist. Look at Gwen Araujo, and see what was done to that poor girl.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gwen_Araujo
I doubt they’re looking to make business create unisex bathrooms, rather they’re going to state that transsexuals have the right to use the bathroom of their lived gender. It’s a bathroom, all that is going on in there is natural body functions in enclosed cubicles. I don’t see why a transwoman in the girls bathroom is such a big deal.
Transgendered folk have the highest suicide rate of any group in the country, because society rejects the concept of transsexuality. Going from Male to Female by choice is an abdication of the implied power of being male, which is a direct challenge to patriarchal nature of the society we live in. It’s no longer considered kosher to attack feminity by attacking women verbally or physically, and so the closest proxy those bigots have are the traitors who’ve given up male privilege in order to follow their own inner self.
Trans Bigotry is actually redirected misogyny against a group that’s too small to fight back, and usually just wants to be left alone to live life.
Whats the actual extent of the Trans acceptance they’re going to teach the kids? One story in second grade reading class? Are they going to have a full on gender studies class in Kindergarten?
You claim that we have a Gestapo - we don’t.
You think you can spot us - usually, you don’t.
You think we’re sinners - we don’t.
Did not God make man in his own image? Does God make mistakes?
Why would he put us here with a female brain and a male body if not to teach the world that the difference between the genders isn’t as great as we all seem to think it is?
Your homework Jim - Go read up on Indian Hijira’s, Native American Two-Spirits, and go to watch the clips on the National Geographic Channel’s website from the show Taboo about how the Samoan’s actually prize their Trans Folk.
Not all societies have attacked us and hated us, perhaps those other societies knew something we don’t.
- Danielle
Butinski | Oct 30, 2008 | Reply
Although religious conservatives tend to hate this comparison, it bears being said: this was EXACTLY the same argument put forth against desegregation.
Another argument the religious frequently call up, against protecting the rights of people based upon sexual orientation and/or gender identity/presentation is that these are “lifestyle choices”, not inherent, immutable, inborn characteristics.
They may or may not be right that being gay or transgressing the gender binary a matter of choice, not biology - the jury is still, and is likely to remain, out on the nature/nurture controversy. However, these laws protect the religious from discrimination against them for their religious beliefs - which are indisputedly matters of choice and not immutable.
Being an “actual” conservative, I don’t want the government telling atheist me that I can’t discriminate against those who believe in these irrational mythologies - but that is what the Federal and State laws hold - If I have an apartment attached to my house, I can’t keep some fundamentalist, young earth believing, idol-worshipper from renting it - unless I find some other reason to refuse to rent to that person.
My view is this: Individuals, including people of any and all sexual preferences, are already protected by state and federal laws. Have you been discriminated against with respect to a job? Or housing? I seriously doubt it. The existing law is sufficient.
However, federal law does not, nor do most state anti-discrimination laws, proscribe discrimination based upon either sexual orientation or gender identity/presentation/expression (which means, if you happen to be a long-haired good old boy - like, say, Charlie Daniel’s, you could be preceived as queer and any bias would be lawful), so your argument that we (of the large umbrella term “queer”, for anyone who doesn’t toe the line of antiquated beliefs based upon unfounded mythos) are already protected is entirely specious.
And, yes, I and most of the many transsexual personages I know or have met have indeed been discriminated against in employment, housing, as well as many other “public accomodations”, by the vast number of those who, like yourself, are willfully ignorant of the scientific realities which refute your mythological dogma, and who despite claiming to be conservative seem unwilling to share the blessings of Liberty to those who dare disagree.
Your stated “live and let live” philosophy somehow falls flat when those whom you hold in disfavor are unable to find the employment, housing and general sense of well-being that are enjoyed by the majority - as a direct result of the efforts of those who think what another wears or who another sleeps with is any or their business - and thus are unable to share in the “blessings” of Liberty.
Zoe Brain | Oct 30, 2008 | Reply
I’ve had a comment awaiting moderation for 2 days now BTW - probably because it has URLs in it. Just a head’s up.
All the best, Zoe
Jim Willis | Oct 31, 2008 | Reply
To Zoe, Autumn, Boo and Butinski - Thank you all for your comments. You have given me (and those who read this blog) a great deal of information and arguments to consider. Sorry to those whose comments were held in moderation for a day or so — that was a function of my software which tries to catch spam by not automatically releasing comments with web links in them. Unless a comment is obviously spam or is abusive, I always post them asap. As I’ve stated, I welcome all opinions.
I will read through all of your comments in detail and check out the links you’ve provided and rejoin the conversation with another comment on this post this weekend. I want to be fair and measured and thoughtful–and not knee-jerk in my thinking and responses. Thanks again for taking the time to leave a comment.
- Jim
Terry Egan | Oct 31, 2008 | Reply
so what’s a TS gonna do when she needs a place to live? You would be the first to say “You don’t know and you don’t care, you ain’t gonna have no pree-verts living in your house” Being a landlady myself, In some ways, I would agree with you. However, Experience has shown that the Transgendered and Gay tenants are the best.No, I’m not just saying that, My sexually Deviant tenants have given me far less trouble over the years than my so-called normal ones.
People who aren’t transgendered or don’t have a transgendered relative should be banned from posting in these forums. They contribute nothing except a reiteration of society’s age old arguments and prejudices. Come on, can’t you think of something new other than the same worn out old cliched dogma?
Fact, Transexuals and gays have always been here. You aren’t going to wish us away.
Fact, It’s not a choice any more than breathing is is a choice.
Fact, You’re on the wrong side of history. Life is becoming easier for us as more and more
states enact civil rights laws for us. These civil rights laws merely codify implied “rights” that we are assumed to have already. Yes the law covers everyone, but somehow we get lost in the shuffle and the guilty party gets off with a slap on the wrist. Reference the first trial of Gwen Araujo’s killers.
Fact, There are many researchers working to find a gene or other causative factor. Just this week, From Australia, it was released a research team discovered a gene that is related to transexuality. However, this dose not appear to be a “switch”, only a related factor. Maybe next year? Once this gene, or whatever is found, all the religionist and those that say we made a “Choice” to be this way will have find a new group of “sinners” to cure.
Fact, It is in the realm of witchcraft and paganism to even suggest that religion or even reparitive therapy would even help, let alone “Cure” transexuality or homosexuality.
When you wrap your head around these facts, you’ll have come a long way towards understanding our plight.
Regards, Terry
Zoe Brain | Oct 31, 2008 | Reply
Jim - thanks for the measured and thoughtful response.
I may or may not have changed your mind on the issue. That’s not so important. Reasonable people can differ.
What is important is that (some of) the information has been presented to you, and that you’re looking at it with an open mind.
I can’t and shouldn’t tell you “what to think”. And I can’t blame you one whit for not knowing this stuff, it’s *not* well-publicised, and it *does* go against “what veryone knows”.
My thanks for permitting me to express my views on your blog. There’s a lot more information out there, I had to simplify, even over-simplify, so please feel free to contact me with any questions or requests for clarification you may have.
All the very best, Zoe
Monica Helms | Nov 1, 2008 | Reply
Jim,
Let me pose a hypothetical question to you. Think carefully about this, please.
In this hypothetical situation, a doctor has told you that you have an incurable disease, one that will change you physically and completely female. They cannot stop it from happening. Your brain will not change, just your body, so you will still be a guy in your mind.
The question is, do you want a female body, with all the positive and negative issues that come with it, OR, would you want your male body back? Your buddies would treat you differently, and some might even hit on you, but as I stated, your brain hasn’t changed. Your wife or girlfriend will leave you, because they aren’t lesbians, but again, your brain has not change.
Do you want your male body, and the male privilege that comes with it, or will you say, “I have no choice. I have to live with it?” YET, with surgical intervention and hormones, you can get that male body back, with some inconveniences, like a non-functioning “you-know-what.” Outwardly and as far as everyone will be concerned, you’ll be your old self again.
This maybe a “hypothetical disease” in my example, but it is not a hypothetical situation. Transsexuals are born with a mind that screams being in a wrong body. For me, I prayed to God to turn me into a girl, at age five. That was 1956. What was the readily available information on transsexuality in 1956 so a five-year-old child could have access to it? It took God 41 years to answer my prayer. I guess that’s over-night delivery for Him.
Being a transsexual has nothing to do with who we want to see lying next to us when we get up in the morning and everything to do with who we see in the mirror. That image has to match what our brains are telling us. In my hypothetical question to you, how long would it take you to want to change the female image in the mirror to your old self again? For us, it’s as quickly as humanly possible.